


Iunctio

by SinVraal



Series: Mass Effect: Kye Shepard's Story [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Gen, Gen Fic, Romance, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-22
Updated: 2008-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-10 18:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 58,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/102701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinVraal/pseuds/SinVraal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Explorations, variations and off-camera moments from the main storyline. Shenko, multiple character POVs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Breakfast

_snap_

Kaidan Alenko spared a brief glare for the metal bulkhead that had delivered a nasty static shock to his finger before leaving the crew quarters and heading toward the mess hall. His shift wasn't set to start for another hour, but after the events of the last twenty-four hours, there was too much on his mind for sleep to come easily. Regardless, his stomach loudly and insistently demanded attention. Shocks and a voracious appetite were part of his routine as a biotic, but the morning after the Eden Prime mission, both were particularly vociferous.

He was somewhat startled to find Commander Shepard standing in the mess, coffee cup in hand, staring intently at a datapad. The _Normandy_'s new XO was only slightly shorter than himself, with a lean, well-toned frame that spoke both of years of military service and the high-running metabolism of a biotic. Her dark skin and high cheekbones lent her an exotic, if somewhat austere, appearance. The impression was augmented by her tight, short ponytail and the somber expression knitting her brows together.

"Commander," he said by way of greeting.

She glanced up. "Good morning, Lieutenant."

"Feeling better I hope, ma'am?" he ventured. He had done his best to take to heart her dismissal of any fault on his part for the incident with the prothean beacon, but there was still a sting in his chest when he thought about it. _If I'd just stayed away from it..._

"More or less," Shepard replied with a slight frown. "My choice of morning reading leaves something to be desired, though."

Kaidan raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"Preliminary sit-rep from Eden Prime," she continued, a hard edge in her voice. "Casualty reports, damage assessments. None of it pretty."

"Colonial investment's going to take a dive once word of the geth gets out..." he mused.

The commander regarded him with a speculative expression. "Seems likely."

Feeling pinned under that stare, Kaidan dug for something else to say. "I... don't suppose we got any additional intel on those... spikes, ma'am? And what they did to the civilians?"

"Not yet, no," she replied, frown deepening. "Whatever was done to those people is making identification of remains difficult. The brass moved in a reserve division from Second Fleet to boost security, but the colonists are nearly in a state of hysteria. They probably wouldn't feel safe if the whole fleet was stationed in-system."

Kaidan remembered clearly how horrifying the geth husks had been, lurching toward them with open mouths, grasping hands and empty eyes. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to confront them without the benefit of weapons and military training. _And a cool-headed CO._

Shepard turned and put her empty coffee cup into a waiting receptacle in the wall of the mess behind her, where it would be whisked away to be cleaned automatically. "If you'll excuse me, Lieutenant," she said curtly.

"Ma'am." He snapped a quick salute, but she was already headed past the elevator toward the stairs to the main deck. As she had turned to go, Kaidan caught sight of the biotic amp jack nestled just under her hairline at the back of her neck. He felt the renewed prickle of curiosity that had plagued him since the mission.

He figured Shepard must be an L2 as well. Though he had no way of guessing when she'd gotten her implant, he knew she was only a couple of years younger than he. Anyway, the power levels she'd displayed on Eden Prime were more in line with his own than an L3. But where had she trained? Her physical mnemonic forms were all different than his. Plus, she seemed to have mastered a technique he was never able to himself- pulling the gravitational field into a vortex that caused damaging shearing forces within it. He'd seen it done before, but not as effectively.

As Kaidan navigated through the mess hall meal interface in search of breakfast, he worried about having possibly annoyed her with his comments, given what she'd touched on briefly in their short conversation yesterday. The attack on Mindoir had been all over the news vids years ago, but at the time he'd been so wrapped up in his own problems he'd barely noticed. _An attack on a colony would hit pretty close to home for her..._

The meal system coughed up a good-sized tray of steaming eggs, bacon and toast. The smell made his stomach growl expectantly. This automatic cooker unit was brand new, and faster than ones he'd used before. Still, it reconstituted meals from the same frozen or freeze-dried stuff as all the other ones, so he wasn't holding out for anything surprising. He absently took the tray and parked himself in one of the chairs at the single long table.

This whole mission had completely thrown him out of his usual groove. Being abruptly assigned to an experimental vessel under the command of the nearly legendary Captain Anderson was stunning enough, but then to wind up on the ground with an N7 commando and a turian Spectre chasing down a prothean artifact made him feel like everything he'd previously done was a vacation on Elysium.

He'd always been content to do his part, but he knew he was now suddenly on the forefront of something big. There was an undeniable thrill to it. _And if I'd had the sense to stay away from the stupid beacon, we wouldn't have to go crawling back to the Council, and Shepard wouldn't have-_

The sound of boots on the deck-plates approached from behind. He looked up to see Gunnery Chief Williams rounding the bulkhead from the crew area, in the midst of tying her brown hair back into a regulation bun. Of average height, Williams had a compact build and a generous mouth that seemed to carry a perpetual smirk of amusement. Contrary to Shepard's restrained demeanor, the chief seemed to inject a bit of cocky swagger into everything she did.

"Hey, LT. Up early too, huh?" she asked.

Kaidan let the truncation of his rank slide. He'd never been a stickler for formality, and the nickname neatly bridged proper protocol and friendly familiarity. She certainly wasn't the first marine to call him that.

"Morning, Chief," he said. "Yeah, busy day ahead."

"Those pods are going to take some getting used to," Williams drawled, stretching her arms over her head and rolling her shoulders. Kaidan focused pointedly on his breakfast; it was too early in the morning to play the 'should-I-look-or-not' game.

"Still dealing with that myself," he admitted. Though in truth, he didn't mind them too much. He was quickly coming to the realization that the communal sleeper pods represented the only true privacy on a ship as small as the _Normandy_. And once they were closed and the cover opaqued, there was something pleasantly isolating about the small, nearly soundproofed space. W_ouldn't be a bad place to wait out the next migraine __that rolls around__, all things considered._

"This your first ship-board posting, sir?" Williams asked.

"No... I've done tours on a couple of patrol cruisers. Not a lot of space on those either, but at least you get your own bunk."

"Never thought I'd miss barracks," she smirked, peering skeptically at the food dispensing unit. "Oh well, at least these don't change." She made a selection, and the interface obligingly produced a foil-wrapped energy bar. She picked it up and dropped into a chair opposite him.

"I don't know how you can eat all that so early in the morning," the chief said, eyeballing his food and making a face.

"I more or less have to," he replied with a slight shrug.

She cocked her head to one side. "It's a biotic thing, right?"

Kaidan bit off a sigh. In the fifteen years since getting the implant, he had largely gotten used to the 'intro phase', and knew it was out of ignorance and not malign intentions. An old friend of his from one of his early postings had gone on at length about how they should institute a 'Biotics 101' session at boot camp, just to save the next generation of empowered people the hassle of explaining themselves to every new person they were posted with. _At least I don't have to go through this with Commander Shepard._

"Yeah," he said, trying to keep his voice neutral. "Eden Prime was a workout."

Williams started to say something, then checked herself. "You get that a lot, don't you, sir?" she said instead.

"I was thinking of making flash cards," Kaidan said mildly. Putting down his fork, he mimed holding up a set of cards and leafing through them. "'Hi, I'm biotic.', 'Gravity is your friend', 'No, I can't read your mind.', 'My powers are fueled by the blood of virgins.'"

Williams laughed. Since their impromptu meeting on the battlefield yesterday, Kaidan still wasn't quite sure what to make of the chief. She'd shown herself to be a competent, adaptable fighter, but there had been a few times when she'd been downright abrasive. _At least she has a sense of humor._

"Virgins have all the best blood, it's true," she demurred. "We didn't have any biotics in the 212... But there was one in my last posting. He was a complete jerk, thought he was God's gift to the unit."

Something in her voice reminded Kaidan that it would be anything but charitable to be too quick to judge someone who'd just lost a number of friends.

"I've met a few of those," he said ruefully. He would have thought that brain surgery and long, harsh training would be a humbling experience, but it seemed to give some people an excuse to treat everyone else like inferior specimens. Unfortunately, the stable, good-natured biotics weren't the ones who made the news.

Williams lapsed into contemplative silence as she ate her energy bar. Kaidan chased down the last bits of his breakfast, his thoughts drifting back to the commander. He wondered where she'd gotten that scar on her forearm... modern medical technology could get rid of such things fairly easily, the fact that it was still there meant it had been deliberatly left. Given what he knew of her service history, he had his suspicions as to what had caused it, but it wasn't the kind of thing one casually asked anyone, never mind one's CO.

Abruptly, Williams leaned forward slightly. "So what's Commander Shepard like?" she asked, fixing him with a conspiratorial expression.

Kaidan felt a small flash of irritation. "I've served under her for all of seventy-two hours more than you, Chief. I don't think that qualifies me as an expert."

"She's N7, though, right? Special forces?"

"I'm sure she puts her pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us," Kaidan said, keeping his expression bland. _She gets static shocks all the time, like me._

"Remember that batarian slaver ring that was broken up last year in the Attican Beta cluster? The Alliance dressed it up like a big joint-operations thing, but scuttlebutt says that Commander Shepard and a strike team of N-ops did all of the dirty work..."

Just as the last few words came out of Williams' mouth, Commander Shepard herself appeared, coming down the stairs from the command deck. Kaidan froze, then moved to stand up. The chief's eyes widened in realization. Shepard approached, folding her arms and fixing the startled Gunnery Chief with her piercing gaze as Williams shot to her feet.

"I'm also twelve feet tall and breathe fire. Says so right in my file," the commander said evenly. Despite her stern expression, Kaidan thought he saw bemusement in Shepard's brown eyes.

"Glad you're on our side then, ma'am!" Williams said quickly, standing ramrod straight and sounding like she was addressing a fuming drill sergeant.

Shepard scrutinized the gunnery chief for a few heartbeats before a small smile quirked the side of her mouth.

"We're coming up on the Citadel relay if you two would like to see the view," the commander said finally. "Apparently the _Destiny Ascension_ is in port." With that, she turned and headed back to the command deck.

"That's, uh, the big asari dreadnought, right?" Williams said when Shepard had gone, turning in Kaidan's direction.

"Biggest in the fleet," he said absently, still looking at the base of the stairs where the commander had vanished.

_Whatever happens next, it won't be dull._


	2. Killer

Kaidan wasn't sure what to expect, coming back to Chora's Den not two days after being involved in a pitched battle within its walls. He supposed the place was too profitable to be shut down over pesky things like bullet holes, bloodstains and the abrupt disappearance of its owner. Regardless, there didn't seem to be any kind of reduction in the number of patrons; indeed there may have been more now. Cynically, he decided a gunfight might only have added to the appeal.

He didn't feel quite so out of place to be here in regular fatigues as opposed to full armor, but Shepard, Chief Williams and himself were still conspicuously armed. The Stinger pistol he had obtained recently was clipped to his belt, the weight of it a constant reminder of the possible threats lurking on the Citadel, courtesy of the now discredited Spectre Saren.

He'd been surprised when Shepard had simply handed him the gun outside the farmers' hab-unit on Eden Prime, as if it were the natural choice. Tactically he supposed it was, since both the commander and Williams only used their sidearms as holdout weapons, but he'd assumed she would take it. The Devlon pistol was higher quality than his standard-issue Hahne-Kedar, rated with superior muzzle velocity and heat dispersion, but he still felt a little queer about having it at all. Acquiring weapons in the field had never before been part of his normal modus operandi, and he wondered about the legality of randomly appropriating smuggled goods. Still, he couldn't argue with the results, so he was inclined to trust Shepard's judgment.

The crowd in attendance was mixed, mostly turians, but with a generous number of other species as well. A reptilian krogan with a dark blue crest loomed near the door. Kaidan was faintly startled to realize it was the same bouncer who had been shooting at them just the other day. That the alien was still here spoke both to the krogan's resilience and to their famously mercenary tendencies. The bulky bouncer eyed their weapons, then glowered at Shepard.

"No trouble," he growled.

The commander glanced at the krogan, then moved past into the entranceway as if she was the new owner come to inspect the premises. She stopped just inside and scanned the room, squinting in the dim light.

"There he is... I'll handle this. You two keep your eyes open, it shouldn't take long," she said briskly. She started moving through the crowd toward the back of the large hall, past the bar.

"That means keeping your tongue inside your head, LT," Williams said helpfully.

"You're welcome to cover that side, Chief," he replied evenly, waving a hand toward the section reserved for 'private' shows where several scantily-clad asari were gyrating for appreciative customers.

Before she could object he headed off around the other side of the bar, where there were more tables, and by the looks of things, where the more serious drinking was going on. He picked his way carefully around various people toward the wall, dodging waitresses and trying to find a place where he could keep an eye on the commander's immediate vicinity while not standing out like a sore thumb. He caught the gaze of a trio of turians who appeared to be sizing him up, but it was difficult to judge if they were focused on him, his weapon, or his uniform. Soon, though, they turned back to whatever discussion they were having.

Kaidan eventually found an empty spot against the wall where the neighboring tall table generally concealed his gun. The two salarians standing there turned to glance at him with their huge black eyes, but he ignored them.

He wondered how many people here even knew about recent events, or at least anything accurate. Rumors would be rampant, but it would no doubt take time for the truth about Shepard's new position to filter down to the denizens of a place like this. It was probably also fairly safe to assume the vast majority of patrons had no interest whatsoever in recent politics, so long as the booze kept flowing.

A few minutes later, amid the buzz of conversation, he suddenly thought he heard his name being called. He peered into the crowd around the tables, and caught sight of someone waving at him. He glanced back to where Shepard was standing, but saw nothing unusual. Figuring he'd be able maintain his line of sight, he wandered in the direction of the table.

By the time he got close enough to recognize the two humans sitting there, it was too late.

_Oh great. Of all the bars..._

Service Chief Jefferson had a mop of unruly blond hair that was probably pushing the limits of regulation length, and a round face that made him look rather younger than his actual age. By contrast, Corporal Marcus was lean and angular, with features that hinted at ancestry somewhere in the Pacific countries of Earth, and short-cropped black hair. Both were wearing marine fatigues, though the clothes were now somewhat the worse for wear. It was immediately apparent they'd both been here for some time and were well into several drinks. _How heartwarming to know they keep proud traditions alive._

"Alenko... damn it's been a while," Marcus drawled, slouched indolently in his seat. Despite their respective ranks, he'd always been the leader of this little pair. "Never thought you'd turn up in a place like this."

"Life is interesting that way, isn't it?" Kaidan replied casually, in lieu of several possible, far less polite answers that cropped up in his head.

"Keeping in shape there, Killer?" Marcus asked, tapping his temple with one finger.

_Drop dead. _ "Of course," Kaidan said in a flat tone. "I'd be happy to demonstrate, but I'm on the clock here."

Jefferson laughed, a shrill noise that never failed to get on Kaidan's nerves. "Oh man, whose ass did you have to kiss to get _that_ assignment?"

"Seriously," Marcus said, "did the brass send you down here to write a report on how much the girls charge?" The two men sniggered as if this were high comedy.

_These two weren't worth my time then__, and they __sure as hell aren't now._ Kaidan opened his mouth to excuse himself when Marcus abruptly cut him off.

"And who's this fine piece of ass with you?" the corporal said, looking past Kaidan with a wide grin.

"That-" Kaidan started, glancing over his shoulder with the full expectation of seeing Chief Williams. His words died in his throat when Commander Shepard herself casually stepped past him. "... would be... my CO," he finished lamely, feeling a sudden urge to punt the two men hard into the back wall. He forced himself to keep his hands firmly at his sides.

Arms folded, Shepard regarded the two leering marines with a raised eyebrow. Possibly the less drunk of the two, Jefferson's lascivious grin suddenly wilted. His eyes flicked from Shepard to Kaidan and back again, widening as recognition slowly set in. Hovering behind his commander, Kaidan's profound embarrassment was quickly transforming into a certain perverse satisfaction. He wondered vaguely if the universe was allowing him a measure of karmic revenge by letting these two marines skewer themselves on their own idiocy.

Williams appeared at his elbow. "Hostiles?" she asked him lightly.

"Bilge," Kaidan muttered, glancing back at her.

"More of them! I like where this is going..." Marcus drawled, eyeing the gunnery chief up and down and blithely forging ahead. "Can I buy you ladies a drink, maybe a lapdance?" He waved expansively towards the asari entertainers.

The flush of alcohol seemed to have drained entirely out of Jefferson's face as he looked sharply at his friend with an expression of dawning horror.

"We were just leaving," Shepard said crisply, turning toward Williams. "We shouldn't detain these gentlemen any longer, I'm sure they have lots of packing to do."

"Packing for wha-" Marcus' comment was cut off abruptly as the blond SC cuffed him in the shoulder and hissed something between clenched teeth.

"I hear Titan is chilly this time of year... what do you think, Chief?" Shepard asked coolly.

"There are a _lot _of toilets to clean on Arcturus, ma'am," Williams suggested helpfully.

Kaidan was unable to resist shooting the two gaping men a smug smirk now that his companions were looking elsewhere. Marcus' mouth was working soundlessly, and for a moment the look he threw Kaidan was almost pleading.

"We're done here," the commander pronounced, then turned and strode away. Kaidan followed, not bothering to spare Marcus and Jefferson another word. The three of them threaded their way through the crowd past the bar to the door, still guarded by the sullen krogan bouncer.

"Friends of yours, Lieutenant?" Shepard asked, once the door cycled shut behind them.

"Uh, no ma'am," he replied emphatically. "They were in my unit on the _New Delhi_, four years ago."

"Quite the couple of assholes," Williams observed.

"Certified, grade-A assholes," Kaidan confirmed, "who've apparently failed to grow up."

"Grow up? More like _evolve_..." Williams smirked.

He shrugged. "I guess they're cozy down there with the rest of the primordial ooze."

"Killer?" Shepard inquired mildly, glancing back at Kaidan as they walked.

_Godammit._ Kaidan composed his face into a bland mask. "An old, bad joke not worth repeating, ma'am," he said vaguely, silently praying the commander wouldn't ask. He had no interest in going into either the incident at Jump Zero or how Jefferson and Marcus had come to find out about it, not here and with the Chief in tow.

Mercifully, Shepard let it pass. Whether she'd detected his discomfort or simply bought his act was up for debate, but Kaidan strongly suspected the former. In the few days they'd spent at the Citadel, his commander had already displayed a remarkable skill at diplomacy and reading people that was sometimes uncanny. _I suppose they didn't invite her to be a Spectre just because she can shoot straight._

"So did Septimus play ball, Commander?" Williams asked as they passed through a door into a poorly lit connecting hallway.

"He did. Apparently he was the one leaking Xeltan's information, too," Shepard replied.

"So a turian _general_ compromised diplomatic security... because a woman rejected him?" Kaidan said skeptically.

Williams cocked an eyebrow in his direction. "Don't underestimate us, LT," she said with a narrow smile. "So what did you tell him, ma'am?"

"I appealed to his sense of honor," the commander said, pitching her voice in imitation of the asari consort's smooth lilt.

"At least we can get out of here and go back to the Presidium," Kaidan said, peering into the dingy alleyway.

"Oh yes, let's hurry back so the consort can drip all over me some more," Shepard replied laconically.

Kaidan blinked, somewhat taken aback. Back in the consort's chambers, the commander had given no indication whatsoever she'd been bothered by Sha'ira's rather forward manner. That she'd so smoothly run with a situation that would have left him floundering only reinforced his assessment of Shepard's skills.

"Some people pay a lot of credits for those drippings," the chief observed.

"And wait six months, apparently," the commander mused. "Frankly, they're welcome to it. Wanton invasions of my personal space by total strangers isn't how I normally choose to start my day."

Kaidan experienced a mild sense of relief... the whole meeting with the asari, beautiful though she was, had left him feeling strangely prickly.

The three of them emerged through another door into a market section. The ceiling was higher here, and beyond the throng of shoppers Kaidan could make out the sweeping arc of a neighboring Ward and the purple nebula beyond. Aliens of all color and dress moved about, and the drone of conversation filled the air.

"Time to absorb some local color," Shepard said in a businesslike tone. "There's some right now. I wonder what mods he has in stock..." She broke away and strode over to a merchant stall, leaning on the counter to address its rotund volus owner.

Left standing a few paces back, Kaidan looked around the crowded marketplace, Williams at his side.

"You enjoyed it, didn't you, LT?" she said suddenly, favoring him with a lopsided smile.

"Hm?" he replied absently.

"The jerks in Chora's Den?"

"Possibly." He allowed himself a slight grin.

"You know, you _are_ an officer, you could have just written them up yourself."

"Where's the fun in that?" Kaidan said innocently. "Anyway, I don't really care if the commander writes them up or not."

"You're right, getting to watch a couple of meat-heads wet their pants in terror is worth the price of admission." Her own grin was wicked.

"I'll cherish the memory, Chief."


	3. Disc

Sitting on a bed in the med-bay of the _Normandy_, Liara T'Soni was hard pressed not to stare at the human doctor.

She'd simply never been this close to a human before, and her curiosity threatened to get the better of her at every moment. A fascinatingly complex network of lines both subtle and obvious seemed to describe Doctor Chakwas' face, smoothing or deepening as her expressions changed. Liara thought she saw a slight asymmetry in the woman's features, something she'd noticed in the faces of the others as well. A flaw in human genetics, perhaps? But by far the most intriguing was her hair. Liara had certainly read about hair before, briefly, in a treatise on human social patterns, but had never seen it this close up. She found herself enthralled by the interplay of strands, the way it shifted with every move of the doctor's head. _There must be thousands... millions! What must it be like to- _

"Your electrolytes are somewhat out of balance," Doctor Chakwas pronounced, snapping Liara out of her reverie. "But it's nothing serious. Stress, exertion of your biotics without sufficient sleep or food, I imagine. Something to eat and some rest and you'll be fine." The doctor smiled at her as she turned off the diagnostic display. The woman's speech had an odd cadence, what must have been a regional accent different than the others. Her manner was a mix of professional efficiency and motherly concern, and Liara liked her immediately.

"Thank you, Doctor," Liara said. "I didn't expect... well, you seem to know a great deal about asari physiology."

"My medical training did include some basics on the treatment of different species, and Commander Shepard seems bent on making sure I put it to use," Doctor Chakwas said with a wry smile.

"This crew is... unusual, isn't it?"

"Alliance vessels don't normally include krogans, quarians and turians on staff, no. But then nothing about the commander's mission seems like it's going to be run-of-the-mill."

"I'm sorry, run of...?" Liara trailed off, confused.

Doctor Chakwas chuckled. "Normal, predictable. It's easy to forget that not everyone understands our idioms, isn't it?"

Liara brightened. "So true! Prothean ideograms are one of my main areas of interest, their cultural works are full of them. I've compiled a database to attempt to cross-reference them with historical events, but there are so many gaps and I-"

She stopped as the med-bay door cycled open and Commander Shepard strode in, a tray on one hand and a small metal box in the other. Shepard put the box down on one of the other beds and approached Liara with what the archaeologist realized was food- a steaming bowl and a small round bun.

"I'm afraid we don't have any asari meals on board, but hopefully this will do," the commander said, just as Liara noticed a strange mark on the skin of her forearm that looked much like a wound.

"Oh! Were you injured?" she asked, pointing at the mark. The battle against the krogan and his geth down on the planet had been short but fierce, and when pressed, the brutal mercenary had charged Shepard and her team with a wicked-looking knife.

Shepard stopped, looking faintly surprised. "Well... yes, but several years ago."

Doctor Chakwas, seeing Liara's perplexed expression, came to her rescue. "It's a scar, Doctor T'Soni. Humans don't have the same kind of cellular regeneration that you do, so tissue trauma often leaves some kind of permanent mark. Just about all of us have them somewhere or other."

"Oh, of... of course. I'm sorry if I offended you, Commander..."

"You didn't offend me," Shepard said with a smile and a dismissive wave of her hand. "This is a learning experience for all of us." She handed the tray to Liara.

"Thank you." Liara picked up the steaming bowl and sampled its contents. The soup was rather bland, but hearty and entirely edible. Regardless, her stomach suddenly remembered how hungry it was and taste became irrelevant.

While the commander and Doctor Chakwas discussed arrangements for her accommodations, Liara took the opportunity to surreptitiously examine her rescuer as she ate. She still had trouble believing a human had come into contact with a prothean interstellar communications beacon and come away from the experience intact, but it seemed the species was nothing if not surprising at every turn. And this Shepard was particularly intriguing, so commanding and confidant, yet capable of genuine warmth. Despite being on a ship full of strange aliens, Liara found the commander's presence at its center strangely reassuring.

It wasn't helping her feel at ease that the crew already associated her with Benezia, ally to their avowed foe. Even in the brief couple of hours she'd been aboard, a strange mixture of suspicion and fascination seemed to follow her like a cloud.

She'd been warned about the human males in particular. One of her colleagues at the university had traveled to the Citadel, and went on at great length about them and how much fun they were to play with, especially the younger ones. "Enthusiastic" had been the word she'd used repeatedly. Liara wasn't sure how much she liked the idea of using anyone for fun, and anyway seeing them in the flesh was something entirely different than hearing her friend's wild stories. They were all so... square. Variations of muscular, bulky or reed-thin, all straight lines and hard angles. Most bizarre was that some of them had hair on their _faces_. Liara had tried to imagine an evolutionary or societal advantage to that, but thus far had come up empty.

"Liara?"

Liara started slightly, realizing she'd been drifting again. The pervasive weariness was starting to override the excitement of recent events. "I'm sorry, yes?"

Shepard was looking at her. "I set you up with one of the sleeper pods for second shift. It isn't very luxurious as rooms go, but it's comfortable enough."

"Oh, luxury isn't necessary!" Liara assured her. "I spend most of my nights in tents at dig-sites, so anything you provide will be more than adequate. It's just..."

"What is it?"

"Well, I don't want to feel like I'm just taking up space and resources on your ship..."

"Actually, I have something here that might occupy some of your time." Shepard turned to pick up the small metal case she'd brought in and unclipped the lid, bringing it over so Liara could see. Inside, a padded interior cradled a small, battered-looking square of metal. The design was slightly different than she'd seen before, but Liara nonetheless recognized it instantly.

"A prothean data disc!" she exclaimed.

"We happened upon it in the Hades Gamma cluster," Shepard explained.

Unable to resist, Liara gently lifted the disc from the box and turned it over in her hands, examining every detail and already beginning to form theories of where it may have come from. Just looking at it made her weariness recede. _And what secrets do you hold, little one?_

"It looks damaged... but with the right scanning equipment, we might be able to extract something from it," she murmured, half to herself. _I'll have to get my files and databases uploaded, maybe at the next comm buoy I can send a request to the university... _

"My medical scanner is top of the line, Doctor T'Soni," Chakwas said. "It's not quite what you're used to, but I'm sure we could calibrate it for your needs."

Looking up from the disc held carefully in her hands, Liara looked gratefully at Doctor Chakwas, then caught Shepard's inquiring gaze.

"You... would entrust this to me, Commander?" the young archaeologist asked, still amazed that she'd been given so wonderful a thing seemingly out of hand.

"I was thinking of using it as a coaster for my coffee cup, but I think you'll get more good out of it..." Shepard said mildly.

The horror must have shown on Liara's face, because Shepard's expression changed.

"That was a joke, Liara," the commander said with an apologetic smile. "I know how valuable it is, to all of us."

"Oh... um..."

"If you're through traumatizing my patient, Commander, I think Doctor T'Soni needs some rest," Chakwas said briskly.

Shepard nodded. "We'll talk later, Liara," she said, then turned and strode out the door. Liara looked back down at the disc, but found herself thinking instead of the commander, a thousand questions running through her mind.

_What secrets do _you _hold, Shepard?_


	4. Glance

Kaidan was still trying to get used to Commander Shepard's fighting style.

He himself had always favored the defensive, calculated approach. He preferred mobility, heightened awareness of the battlefield, and disruption of the enemy. After all, if your opponents didn't know where you were and couldn't fire back properly, then they weren't a threat to begin with. Instead of the heavy assault rifle most marines preferred, he carried a loadout of Electronic Counter Measures grenades, a good omni-tool, and a field medkit. Being a technician and a medic wasn't very glamorous, but he enjoyed the feeling that he was ahead of the game and valuable to his team. In previous postings he'd fought mostly with the rather staid tactics of larger squads, usually led by unimaginative officers who preferred a "stand-and-shoot-from-cover" approach, sometimes with automated gun drones for flavor. Often, they didn't seem to know quite what to do with a biotic, so he was usually relegated to defense, support, and dealing with the wounded.

Shepard was another story entirely. Back on Eden Prime, Kaidan might have been tempted to describe her approach to fighting as 'reckless', but he discarded the notion fairly early. Reckless soldiers didn't tend to live past mission one, never mind become officers and N7 special forces commandos. If it was recklessness, then it was the calculated kind. Her approach to small-unit attacks seemed to be one of shock; get into the enemy's space as fast and as hard as possible, then knock them down while they're still trying to compensate. The Commander also seemed particularly adept at picking out and destroying the lynch-pins of enemy forces.

And despite himself, he was still surprised at how well this seemed to work, regardless of the fact they were frequently outnumbered. Even the geth, who he assumed would be largely unflappable opponents, seemed flummoxed by this aggressive, short-range attack. Shepard herself fought with a tight, fierce intensity, picking targets and barking orders quickly and calmly even in the heat of battle. Kaidan sometimes imagined that anything that came under her laser focus would simply burst into flames of its own volition.

Determined to adapt and provide close support to his Commander, Kaidan did his best to keep up with the frenetic pace, even though it usually meant being outside of his comfort zone, if it could be said that there was such a thing in war. And so it was that he was still trying to adapt on the planet Sharjila, in a worn-down prefab warehouse that smelled of engine lubricant and unwashed people, under a hail of gunfire from undisciplined but determined mercenaries.

Still, the outcome was all but academic. Already he could feel the rhythm of the battle settling firmly in their favor as Wrex and Chief Williams pushed up the flank while he and Shepard kept pressure on the center.

"Alenko!"

Kaidan's head snapped around at the sound of his name, just in time to catch sight of Shepard's armored form barreling toward him in a half-crouch. The air was punched from his lungs as she shoulder-checked him into the dun metal supply crates to his right, and he heard the hiss and crackle of kinetic shielding being disrupted. Momentarily stunned, he flattened himself reflexively against the cover, trying to draw in the breath to ask what was happening. His answer came quickly enough.

Shepard had taken a half-step away to get a look around the heavy crate, but retreated hastily as the crack of another mass-accelerated slug impacted close by, distorting the crate's metal frame. In the tight space, she backed straight into him, holding her shotgun close against her chest. Kaidan stayed frozen, smelling the slight nip of ozone in the air as their armor-generated kinetic barriers intersected invisibly.

"Sniper on the upper level! Wrex, take him out!" The Commander called, quickly gesturing a mnemonic form with her right hand.

Her biotic corona flared, the blue-tinged field distorting her outline as it tightened into a protective barrier similar to his own, which he'd activated only moments before. Pressed up against Kaidan as she was, the two dark energy fields rolled and crawled against each other in a bizarre flare of sensation that made him abruptly, wildly aware of her. Biotically sensitive individuals were conscious of each other's fields to an extent, but being this close to another potent L2 as she manifested made his hair stand on end.

But the feeling lasted only a heartbeat. Picking her moment from variables that were beyond him, she bolted forward, vaulting neatly over the lower workbench and back out into the fray. Kaidan shook himself, feeling a well of frustration that he'd allowed himself to so badly lose situational awareness in the middle of a fight. Something in his visor HUD was trying to get his attention. Low on the left-hand side was a short list of abbreviated names listing each member of his squad, flanked by a set of indicators. One next to Commander Shepard's name was red- indicating a hardsuit breach. A chill flashed down his spine.

Deeper in the room, the chatter of gunfire was punctuated by the thudding of furniture and crates flying into the walls. "Sniper down." Wrex's voice rumbled over the comms. As usual, he sounded no more concerned by the nearby combat than if he were commenting on the weather.

Kaidan jogged around the cover of the crates, palming and priming an ECM grenade as he went, all the while trying to catch sight of Shepard. Abruptly, his kinetic shield crackled warningly, and a burst of impact slammed into his left side. Instinctively he dodged behind cover, cursing himself for being distracted. Luckily the shooter hadn't hit him squarely, and his shields and biotics had absorbed the worst of the slugs' kinetic energy. As a matter of reflex he executed the mnemonic form that reinforced his additional protective barrier of dark energy.

An indicator in his HUD told him that his overload charge was primed and transferred to the grenade. He thumbed it into the modified rail launcher along the lower barrel of his pistol, then cautiously poked his head around the support beam he hid behind.

The sleek form of a black-armored turian advanced toward his hiding place, assault rifle poised. Kaidan snapped off the ECM grenade and dodged back behind cover just as his opponent spotted him and fired back. A burst of mass accelerated rounds rang off of the metal beam. A moment later there was a buzzing crack as the ECM grenade detonated, and Kaidan's own shield hummed in protest at the explosion's proximity. Ignoring it, he whipped back around the beam and fired his pistol. The turian was still recovering from the brilliant blast, and his shields were depleted. Kaidan's first shot tore away the last bit of shield charge, and the next two punched neat holes in the smooth, featureless visor. The turian's head snapped back, and he collapsed in a heap.

Grimly satisfied, Kaidan moved past the dead slaver, prowling for a new target. The gunfire had ceased, but he knew better than to let his guard down.

Chief Williams' voice came over the comms, low and predatory. "Hey LT, we got someone pinned down over there, you see him?"

"No-" He started to reply, but as he came around another support beam he spotted the man crouched behind the thick metal workbench. Holding an assault rifle in one hand, the gray-armored human seemed to be fumbling with a grenade. "Wait, target sighted. Incoming," he said curtly.

Focusing on his target, Kaidan quickly passed his pistol to his left hand, gauging the distance and feeling for the subtle currents of gravity in the room. Generally, planet gravity wells were so large and stable that they posed no interference at all. In one smooth motion, he slid one foot forward into his set stance then swept his right hand around and up. A liquid rush ran up his torso and down his arm, an automatic response hard-won through relentless training, as the mutant nerve bundles in his body fired in sequence. The familiar, languid blue corona of light distortion enveloped him even as he felt the surge of exertion.

The air around the gray-armored man seemed to waver as the gravitational field neutralized, then inverted within the controlled dark energy vortex. His arms wind-milled helplessly as he tumbled into the air, along with a number of loose tools and a chair. Kaidan's squad-mates didn't wait. The chatter of two assault rifles rang out from across the room, and the unfortunate man's shields and armor were shredded in the ensuing hail of fire.

Kaidan didn't waste time watching the grim spectacle of the dead man spinning slowly in the blue-tinged air, along with his gun and a generous spray of blood. Instead he scanned the rest of the room, coming around wide to sweep the many potential hiding places along the back wall. After a few seconds, he felt the field weaken and give out, followed by the echoing thud and clatter as normal gravity re-exerted itself.

"Clear over here, Commander," Williams reported.

"Negative contacts," Kaidan added.

"Alright, regroup."

Pistol still ready, Kaidan walked toward the center of the prefab warehouse. Shepard stood there, scanning the room. Her shotgun was clipped to the back of her waist and she carried her pistol instead. Kaidan recognized why immediately- a stream of blood ran down from a wound in her left shoulder, standing out starkly against the light gray Scorpion armor. He felt a lurch in his gut, and controlled an urge to run over to her.

"Commander, you're hit," Ashley said, striding over.

As if suddenly aware of it, Shepard passed her pistol to her left hand and reached over to clamp a hand over the wound. "Nothing major. Wrex, sweep upstairs," Shepard ordered, "And Chief, check that back room. We don't want surprises."

"Aye aye, ma'am." The Chief turned quickly and jogged toward the door. Wrex, for his part, merely grunted, but nonetheless headed for the stairs to the second level.

Head still humming from the adrenal rush of combat, Kaidan approached close enough to cover the Commander in case of trouble, then punched up his holographic omni-tool display. A quick scan searched for active hardsuit signatures that didn't correlate with those of his squad-mates, but came back with no hits. He shut off the display. A moment later Ashley came out of the back room, her face twisted into an expression of disgust. She was fingering her rifle as if eager to find someone new to ventilate.

"Clear." She said tightly, "Looks like they keep prisoners in there. Empty now, though."

Shepard's eyes narrowed. "So no sign of Dahlia, unless that's her." She indicated a dead woman in dark red armor a little ways away with a thrust of her chin. Kaidan glanced over and was startled to see that the face under the helmet visor was asari-blue. "And if it is," Shepard continued darkly, "then our dear diplomat was either sadly misinformed, or is using me to clean up her dirty laundry."

"Hah!" Ashley's mouth twisted into a sneer, "If she didn't know then I'll eat my uniform."

Wrex's bass, rumbling chuckle came over the comms. "Now that would be amusing to watch, Williams. All clear up here, Shepard. Found your sniper, gun's bigger than he is. Looks expensive."

"Yeah? Bring it down," Chief Williams said. She surveyed the scene, then moved off, going from one body to the next and checking out their equipment.

Deciding they were safe enough, Kaidan reached over his shoulder, unclipped the medkit from its resting place on his back, and took a few steps closer to where Shepard stood.

"Commander?" he ventured, and when she turned to look at him, he gestured to her shoulder.

"Yeah, go ahead." She lowered her right hand away from the wound, where she'd been holding it shut.

Kaidan forced himself into the clinical detachment he'd cultivated over his years of experience dealing with wounded soldiers- it was almost an instinctual response now. He evaluated the damage. The sniper round had hit the joint between the harder protective plates, penetrating the woven undersuit. Thankfully, her armor's kinetic shield had bled off a significant amount of the projectile's energy, so the tissue trauma was minor. He'd seen what high-powered sniper rifles did to unarmored targets, and it wasn't pretty. Shepard grimaced slightly as he carefully closed the wound with some medi-gel.

"This shot was meant for me, wasn't it, ma'am?" he asked evenly, selecting a temporary patch from his kit that would re-seal the suit against the harsh outdoor environment. The hole was small enough that it would do the job without the worry of decompression.

She nodded slightly. "Given the choice between this and your head, I think we got a good deal."

Kaidan swallowed, suppressing his consternation. "I suppose… I can't argue with that," he said ruefully. "But I should have seen it."

"Like you've said, Lieutenant, luck. Bad or good," she offered, reviving his own words from their short conversation after the Eden Prime debacle. "This time it was on our side."

Kaidan focused on his work, holding at bay the noise of 'what ifs' that tried to force their way into his head. He finished applying the patch, stopping short of reflexively telling her to check the seal before going outside. _ I'm sure an N7 knows how this works._

"Thank you. Ma'am." He said sincerely, looking up from his handiwork. Shepard favored him with a smile that sent a little spike of warmth right through his precarious detachment to wash down his back. She nodded curtly in acknowledgment, turning away as the sound of Chief Williams' boots approached them.

Kaidan took a few steps away, looking around the room but not really seeing it. A welter of thoughts was boiling in his head. Rationally, he knew she was right- that was the way combat went, sometimes all the training in the world didn't make a difference. Saving each other's lives from the moment-to-moment threats of war was part of fighting as a squad. Still, frustration and embarrassment gnawed at him. _Lose concentration in the middle of a warzone, then get bent out of shape at the sight of a nearly insignificant wound, what the hell is wrong with-_

_Oh._

Despite himself, the realization crystallized in his head.

_Great. Perfect. Brilliant. My commanding officer._

He clenched his jaw, staring sightlessly down at the dead asari only a few feet away. In truth, he'd probably known it for a little while now, but never quite crossed the line of admitting the attraction to himself. The bits and pieces had been too easy to rationalize- eagerness to please a respected CO, the thrill of working with a renowned N7 marine and now Spectre, professional curiosity toward another biotic... But he'd been alive more than long enough to know when things were getting out of hand. The fluttery feeling that appeared in his stomach whenever she so much as looked at him was unmistakable.

_I didn't need this. Commander fucking Shepard. _He chewed his lip distractedly. _Fine. It's there. Keep your head down, don't make an idiot of yourself, get the job done and once it's all over if it hasn't gone away you can quietly transfer the hell out of here. _The thought of leaving the _Normandy _didn't appeal in the least. _Yeah, right. Like this kind of thing ever just goes away-_

"Picturing her without her armor on, LT?" Chief Williams' teasing tone cut abruptly through his reverie.

"What? No!" he said too quickly, head snapping up. Ashley regarded him coolly, the hint of an amused smile tugging at her mouth. Suppressing an irritable retort, he continued evenly, "Just thinking."

He looked back down at the asari's slack features, actually seeing them this time. She was beautiful in the same way that all asari were, the kind of surreal perfection that was as alluring as it was disconcerting. At some point, she'd had the blue pigmentation of her skin altered into a pattern like he'd seen on the faces of other asari on the Citadel, though the dead woman's choice of design gave her a decidedly fiercer mien. Still, it was strange to see the glassy glaze of death in the eyes of one of these ethereal aliens.

Ashley nudged the recumbent form with one armored toe. "So little miss perfect here is a slaver. Can you imagine?" she said, her voice thick with disgust. "So much for peace and negotiation, huh?"

"Greed can get its fingers into anyone, I guess," Kaidan replied, frowning. _ Jerks and saints, just like us._

The Chief snorted. "You'd think with a thousand years to live, you could find a better way to make money than selling lives. What a joke."

"One less bad joke in the galaxy, then," Shepard cut in, walking up to them. "Lieutenant, there's a terminal over there I'd like cracked open." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward the back of the prefab warehouse. "I think we can all guess what's going on here, but I'd like to know for sure. And if this is part of a larger ring, then we need to get this info to someone who can do something about it."

"Aye aye, ma'am," Kaidan said, turning on his heel and striding gratefully away from Ashley's bemused stare. A sullen ache was settling into his ribs where the gunfire had hit him. Fitting company, he thought sourly, for his turbulent state of mind.

Just as well that they would soon be out of here.


	5. Maw

Garrus Vakarian wished he understood humans better.

He didn't know why Commander Shepard had included him on the ground team for this mission- chasing down an Alliance distress signal. Wasn't this human business? It certainly had nothing to do with Shepard's primary objective, namely hunting down the rogue Spectre Saren. Why anyone expected the commander, newly initiated as a Spectre herself, to show up on this empty dust-ball of a planet was quite beyond him.

He'd dealt with plenty of humans as a C-Sec officer, but always peripherally. It had taken him some time to get used to them, all huge eyes and bulbous noses, with soft faces that seemed to always be shifting around. Not unlike the asari, in truth, but more... intense? The large eyes especially gave them an air of innocence and helplessness that any turian had to quickly learn was deceptive at best. One of his fellow officers at C-Sec, a veteran of the brief war between turians and humans, had once tried to convince him that if you paid attention, you could read a human entirely by watching their eyes. "They can lie everywhere else," the older turian had intoned, "but the eyes, that's where they're honest."

Garrus wasn't convinced. Humans lied far too easily in his experience. But he understood enough to know that he really didn't know nearly enough about them. Especially this Commander Shepard. She had an unsettling tendency to call him out on his assumptions, always with what seemed like a disarmingly honest interest in hearing his reasoning behind those assumptions. And to date, that reasoning hadn't seemed to live up to even his own expectations. It had left him flustered on more than one occasion.

Still, working with a Spectre was not an opportunity to be taken lightly. Being packed onto a tiny frigate with a bunch of humans seemed like a small price to pay for the privilege of being freed from C-Sec's endless bureaucracy, to pursue his quarry anywhere they tried to hide. Mercifully, he'd found a few shared interests among Shepard's crew, including Lieutenant Alenko, the third member of this forsaken little expedition to Edolus. The man was intelligent and low-key, if a little attached to his regulations. More importantly, he seemed not to project the same suspicion, or indeed outright mistrust, that radiated from some of the other humans. He apparently had some engineering training, a mutual interest that gave Garrus a topic of conversation that had little chance of wandering into the thorny territory of the First Contact wars and other such misunderstandings. After his near disastrous attempt to strike up a conversation with Gunnery Chief Williams, talking tech with Alenko was really rather pleasant.

Garrus forced himself to focus on the task at hand. Edolus, a planet marked only by its monumental dullness. The wind blew a constant burr of fine silicate sand against his sealed hardsuit. He hoped that he wouldn't have to deploy his rifle, because it would no doubt mean at least an hour or two of cleaning the grit out of it afterwards. It seemed unlikely, though. They had exited the Mako, the commander's light infantry fighting vehicle, and were now inspecting the site of the distress call.

Not that there was anything whatsoever to see. The beacon itself, and a large Alliance crawler tank parked nearby. No sign of its occupants.

"Tank's registered to Third Fleet." Alenko's voice came over the comms. His holographic omni-tool interface was lit up.

Commander Shepard was abnormally quiet. She seemed to be scanning the horizon.

The lieutenant continued, "In the system under orders from... Rear Admiral Kahoku? Strange." The interface around his arm vanished and he looked in Shepard's direction, no doubt waiting for orders.

Abruptly, she knelt down on one knee and flattened her palm against the ground. The lieutenant's head cocked slightly to one side.

Garrus was becoming edgy. Visors sealed against the atmosphere as they were, he couldn't even begin to guess what the two humans were thinking.

"I'll... check the distress beacon transmitter," he offered. "Maybe there's-"

"No," she cut him off sharply, rising to her feet. "Back in the Mako. Both of you."

Garrus glanced at the lieutenant. He seemed to be hesitating. "Commander...?"

"Now!" Shepard barked, in the universal tone of command that seemed to transcend species, instantly triggering his military-trained instinct to obey his superior officer.

He followed the two human marines back to the Mako, squeezing past Alenko into the second row of seats in the cramped cabin. For the third time today, he silently lamented that its designers couldn't have allowed a few extra inches of space. Commander Shepard moved quickly, securing her belts into place and punching up the driving console, odd considering that Alenko had been the one to drive them here from the drop-zone. Garrus felt the sudden tension curl in his gut. He transferred the feed from one of the exterior cameras into his helmet HUD and quickly scanned the view, seeing nothing but the empty silicate desert and blowing dust. He felt the pressure change against his armored suit as the cabin sealed itself and the engine whined to life.

"Negative contacts, Commander," Alenko reported, a thread of questioning uncertainty in his voice.

Whether she heard him or not was debatable, intent as she was on... something. The Mako lurched forward, six gigantic tires digging into the loose soil as it accelerated sharply.

"I see you there..." Garrus heard the commander murmur over the engine noise.

He barely had time to grab hold of his chair for dear life before the whole vehicle slewed violently to the left, nearly riding up on one set of wheels. A shudder ran through the shock absorbers and a monstrosity suddenly burst into Garrus' HUD camera feed, filling the air with dust and flying rocks.

"Thresher!" the lieutenant's voice cracked over the comms, overly loud.

Thresher maw. Garrus had only heard about them. Worm-like, huge, all interlocking chitinous plates and sporting a double set of long blade-like claws, the monster trailed fans of particulate silicates into the air as it lashed violently towards Garrus' viewpoint with terrifying speed. Its claws slammed into the dusty desert floor, mercifully short of the Mako's retreating rear end, but close enough that Garrus had to force himself bodily not to scramble out of his seat in alarm. As the vehicle pulled away, he watched through the dust as an odd convulsion traveled up the creature's body. He barely had time to register something flying toward them when the Mako jagged sharply right and the thresher left the camera's field of view.

"Quit gawking and shoot it!" Shepard snapped, making him jump. "And I need maximum engine power! Dump the shields if you have to, they won't help us!"

Garrus fought down the terror trying to claw up his throat. "Lieutenant! Give me fire control!" he said, attempting to sound calm. Alenko glanced back, then punched a number of controls on the amber display in front of him. A second later Garrus' own display lit up with targeting info. Fighting the bumpy ride, he quickly forwarded the feed into his helmet HUD, linking it to the turret-mounted camera and setting the targeting to follow where he looked.

It took only seconds, but now the monster was nowhere to be seen. "Where-"

"It went back under!" Shepard said tersely. "Next time it pops up I'm going to try and give you a straight run, so make it count."

"Understood." Garrus drew a few deep breaths to steady himself, a habit formed during sniper training. _Sniping backwards. Moving platform, stationary target. __Compensate for sluggish turret tracking. _He carefully wrapped his hand around the fire control, resting his thumb on the trigger studs.

The Mako swerved again. "Five o'clock!" Shepard barked.

"Uh... what?" Garrus said in confusion, searching the camera view.

"Right rear!" Alenko put in.

Garrus pulled the view around as hard as he could, finally catching a glimpse of the thresher looming ominously over the desert floor. He locked his gaze onto the segmented body, wishing he could make the turret track faster by sheer will alone. As the turret cross-hairs raced to catch up to his designated target, the monster uncoiled itself and started to slide back into the ground. His target vanished just as the cannon boomed, kicking up a cloud of debris and dust. He cursed inelegantly. There was a loud thunk over his head as the cannon's auto-loader shunted a new round into the breech.

"Someone put that beacon there!" Shepard said suddenly, her voice almost a snarl. "Just to lure them into a damn thresher nest!"

"Why would-" Alenko came back, cut off as the Mako slewed to the right.

"Vakarian! Left forward!"

"I see it, Commander." The thresher, claws poised, seemed to be looking for them. Garrus gritted his teeth as the cross-hairs snapped into place. He thumbed the trigger and felt a surge of satisfaction as the round impacted solidly on the creature's carapace. But the feeling faded quickly as the thresher whipped around and convulsed, whip-like, and a blob of something dark flew past and ominously close to his camera view.

The thresher began to retreat into the ground once again. _Oh no you don't..._ Garrus timed the humming whine of the mass-accelerator change building, squeezing off a second shot just before the monster dipped out of sight, and was rewarded with a spray of chitinous flesh.

"Two direct hits, Commander," he reported, fighting down the well of dread that came with the realization the unshielded monster had just absorbed two tank-stoppers with ease. "But I don't how much it felt them."

"Just keep firing-"

The Mako heaved violently upwards, slamming Garrus against his restraints with teeth-rattling force. His turret camera feed became a blurred wash of movement and dust, and it was all the turian could do to keep his head from popping straight off his neck. Metal squealed and the engine whined in protest as the vehicle continued to shake, throwing them back and forth against their seats. Over the horrendous noise, Garrus thought he heard Alenko shout something over the comms.

Half a heartbeat later there was a loud buzzing sound, and Garrus' camera feed cut out, as did the rest of the Mako's systems. For a dizzying second they were in silence, near darkness and falling freely, then the ground came up to meet them with another bone-rattling slam. Despite his disorientation, the force of the landing alone told Garrus they hadn't landed right side up on the Mako's considerable shock absorbers, but now rested half on the vehicle's roof, tilted at an angle. As his brain raced to try to catch up with this new state of affairs, suddenly the camera feed snapped back on, treating him to a terrifying full-frame view of the thresher's slavering mouthparts.

Convulsively, he squeezed both triggers as hard as he could. The main cannon boomed thunderously, and the 155mm mass-accelerated round impacted at maximum muzzle velocity, blowing a gigantic hole in whatever passed for the thresher's head. The co-axially mounted machine gun chattered wildly, tearing away pieces of chitin and flesh and spraying black ichor into the air.

Garrus had only a second to relish this victory before the Mako's eezo-generated gravity plane shifted to one side, simultaneous to the firing of one set of drop thrusters. The combined effect was enough to roll the stricken vehicle back over onto its wheels. The instant all six were planted, Shepard gunned the engine and the vehicle lurched away from the thresher. She drove clear, then brought it around in a tight circle, plowing to a stop some distance away, but giving the three of them a clear view of the scene through the front viewport.

Garrus tried to bring the turret to bear, but all he got for the effort was an unpleasant grinding sound somewhere over his head. His camera view remained stubbornly locked onto empty desert.

"We lost some turret rotation," Alenko confirmed nervously, "and the drive train is damaged. We should-"

"Wait," Shepard answered, watching.

Garrus toggled the camera view off and craned his neck to look out past the two humans. Out in the sand ahead of the Mako, the thresher lay sidelong on the ground, its claws drunkenly lashing the air. After a moment, it convulsed strangely, then slid back along its length into the hole it had created and disappeared, leaving only a liquid black stain in the sand.

For a moment there was no sound but the hum of the idling engine.

The Commander sat back in her seat. "I think we're clear," she pronounced.

"Is it... is it dead?" Garrus ventured, hoping his voice wasn't shaking.

"Doubtful," Shepard said grimly. "But we beat it up enough that it's gone back underground to sulk. Lieutenant, what did you do back there?"

Alenko had been staring intently out the viewport and started slightly when Shepard addressed him. He sat back in his seat and drew a breath. "I just... I shunted the charge from the shield capacitors into the heat-sink vanes, which are connected to the outer superstructure. I wasn't sure it would work... but, well, the thresher was grounded and we weren't."

The Commander nodded. "Quick thinking. And Vakarian, nice shooting. I wasn't fast enough on the wheel there... But between the two of you I think we convinced it that we aren't good to eat."

Garrus opened his mouth to say that it was only blind luck that had pointed the turret in the right direction at that moment, but stopped himself, preferring to simply accept the compliment.

"I could swear that it was spitting at us," he said, sitting up to look out the viewport again.

"It was," Shepard replied. "Some kind of digestive fluid, extremely acidic. Eats right through armor plates. Luckily for us we're considerably lighter on our feet than the M4 crawlers." She ran her hand idly over the Mako's dashboard.

Despite himself, Garrus pictured the scene of the thresher eating its way through the hapless Alliance marines. "I wouldn't want to see that hit someone on foot."

Neither of the humans answered for a few seconds. Garrus saw Alenko's shoulders drop slightly.

"Trust me," Shepard sounded suddenly tired. "You really, really don't. Lieutenant, get us to an angle where Vakarian can destroy that beacon and then take us back to the rendezvous point. There's nothing more to be achieved here."

Alenko glanced at her, then settled back into his seat and punched up the drive control. "Gladly, ma'am."

Garrus flexed his hands, feeling an ache settle into his neck and shoulders. An unmistakable chill had settled into the cabin, and he was glad that his helmet concealed the telltale flexing of his mandibles.

_Did I say something wrong? I don't understand at all..._


	6. Rise

Joker was drifting in a pleasantly meditative half-doze when the internal comm monitor bleeped. He fixed the blinking light with a withering glare before touching the 'receive' icon.

"Hey Joker, you doing anything interesting up there?" Chief Williams' voice came over the system.

"Chief, my life is the very definition of interesting," he drawled lazily. "'Secure standard orbit'? Nothing more exciting."

"Perfect, you can entertain me. Want a coffee or something?"

Joker scratched his whiskered chin thoughtfully. Normally he didn't indulge in things that made for more frequent trips to the bathroom. Aside from having to leave the post he manned alone, his weak legs made just getting there a whole production that he'd just as soon avoid unless absolutely necessary. He eyed the consoles in front of him, but they did not deign to light up and demand his attention.

"Sure, why not?" he said finally.

"Great. Be up in a minute."

Soon, the heavy tread of booted feet came tromping up the deck-plates behind him. As if by magic, a steaming cup appeared in his field of view, borne along by Chief Williams' hand. Joker took it carefully. His nose informed him immediately that there was something different about what he'd been handed.

"Something tells me this isn't standard issue," he said with a raised eyebrow.

"I know what kind of swill they try to pass off as coffee on these ships, so I picked up some good stuff at the Citadel." Ashley wore a satisfied smile as she dropped into the co-pilot's chair to his right and wrapped her fingers around her own mug.

Joker paused, cup halfway to his lips, then turned a narrow stare on the Chief. "And just what kind of favor are you going to extract from me for this?" he asked suspiciously. In his experience, nothing was ever free, especially in space.

"I haven't decided yet," she said with a grin, "but I'm sure it'll be good."

"I'm going to regret this," Joker sighed theatrically, taking a sip. It was indeed excellent, bitter but rich and quite hot.

"Life is tough. Any news from our intrepid explorers?" There was an irritated tilt in Ashley's voice.

Joker glanced over the consoles again. Three small readouts represented the transponder signals from the shore party's hardsuits, a fourth the Mako itself. Each glowed green. "I got some telemetry for an ore deposit an hour ago, aside from that, nope."

"Ore. Why do we bother with that again?"

Without looking up from his drink, Joker raised his right hand and rubbed his fingers together in universal sign of fat cash.

"I guess this tub's gotta pay for itself somehow, huh?" She patted the arm of the chair.

Joker let it pass, preferring not to take the obvious bait. He just shrugged, enjoying the spreading warmth of the hot drink.

"Must get pretty dull up here watching the stars go by," Ashley mused.

Joker reached out and lazily touched the gimbal settings. Out in space, the _Normandy_'s port maneuvering thrusters fired a short burst.

"Never get bored of this," he said, waving a hand toward the starboard side view-port. As the _Normandy_ rotated slowly on its axis, the planet came into view, rising to fill the window completely. It was a dun, uninteresting brown, but lit up by the neighboring star, he could easily make out vast, swirling weather systems. "Rise and set on demand."

"How romantic," Ashley said with a sarcastic smirk.

"Oh yeah, I'm all about the mushy stuff," Joker drawled back. "Pressley said if I light candles one more time, he'll blow me out the airlock."

She snickered, watching the planet roll by beneath them as it started to emerge in the port-side window as well.

"I can't believe the commander took the damn turian down there. To check out an Alliance distress beacon," Williams said suddenly, making the source of her lingering annoyance obvious.

Joker cocked his eyebrows in exaggerated sympathy. "Feeling left out?"

She gave him a sour look. "It's marine business and it should stay that way," she said archly. "And after that shitstorm on Therum, Skipper should be taking more guns ground-side. Waste of my time to sit up here and keep the seats warm..." She glanced in his direction, then rolled her eyes. "Never mind."

"Yeah, because I have no idea what it's like to dump my friends on some godforsaken dirt-ball and then twiddle my thumbs while they go get shot at," he fired back, a bit more waspishly than he intended. He sometimes listened to shore party comm traffic, but often it only exacerbated the feeling of powerlessness. In the direst of circumstances, everyone on this ship could pick up a weapon and fight - except him. Better to stay up here and stick to his own job where he knew he had total control.

Ashley regarded him for moment, then turned back to her drink. "Yeah alright, fine," she conceded.

"Anyway, I'm sure Alenko can protect the commander from the big, scary turian." Joker waggled his fingers in imitation of a turian's three-fingered grip.

The Chief snorted indelicately. "He'll be too busy pretending not to stare at her ass."

Joker shifted to glance conspiratorially back over his shoulder down the corridor. It was empty as usual, there were a few crew members at the heat monitors, but it was mid-shift, so anyone not at their station was probably asleep.

"Thought I noticed something going on there," he said with a rich chuckle, settling back and sipping his coffee.

"I don't know how anyone could miss it," Ashley said with another roll of her eyes.

"Jealous?" Joker couldn't help but ask, even though he was fairly sure of the answer.

"Nah," she said without rancor. "Besides, who'd want to compete with humanity's latest vid-hero?"

"Not me. Can't be fun, though. I mean, it's not like he can just switch shifts or something," Joker mused. In truth, he wasn't unsympathetic. Crushes in the military were dicey at best. The lieutenant was probably way too reserved and by-the-book to get into trouble, but that didn't mean he wouldn't suffer for it on a small ship like this. You only had to go through the unrequited thing once yourself before you learned not to be very judgmental.

"I wonder if it's mutual...," Ashley said thoughtfully.

"Couldn't tell ya." Joker had his theories, but for now he kept them to himself. Small boats and long trips made everyone a gossip, and it helped nothing that he had access to all of the shipboard comms and internal cameras. Resisting the urge to 'accidentally' listen in was fast becoming a daily trial, one he didn't always win.

"Skipper's pretty good at hiding what she really thinks," Ashley said speculatively. "Speaking of hiding, how's our latest stowaway doing?"

Joker took the change of subject in stride. "Doctor T'Soni?" he said absently, still mulling over the possibilities.

"Yeah. Think about it, we just have to scoop up a volus and a salarian or two and we can be the biggest propaganda circus sideshow this side of the Traverse."

"Be nice," he chided.

"Not in my job description," Ashley quipped. "The other day the asari walked by the mess and you could almost hear the sound of the flyboys getting whiplash."

"Must be why she hides out in the med-bay all the time."

Ashley snorted again. "She doesn't know the first thing about squad combat, and yet the commander took her out ground-side anyway. Taking a damn archaeologist on a combat mission, just because she has fucking magic powers."

"Magic powers...?" Joker inquired mildly.

"Seems like everyone on this ship has something- fourteen engineering degrees, a list of commendations longer than my arm, goddamn magic powers..."

"And you're just a soldier?" Joker raised an eyebrow, looking at her sidelong.

Before she had a chance to answer, the long-range comm bleeped. Joker immediately turned to respond.

"_Normandy_ here," he said.

"Shore party requesting pickup at the rendezvous point, ETA ten minutes," Alenko's voice came over the comm, modulated by the short-wave burst transmission. The sandy atmosphere on the planet was causing a slight, fuzzy interference.

"Roger that, Lieutenant. Secure and aweigh," Joker said crisply, then shut off the comm relay. Looking over the status indicators that had come with the burst, he noted the Mako's computer reported structural damage. _Something happened down there. Why is Alenko calling in? _He eyed the hardsuit transponders, but they were still green.

He turned back to Ashley. "From where I'm sitting, Chief, being able to walk, run and fuck without it being a logistical nightmare is pretty much magic." Joker quirked a sarcastic smile before turning back to the flight controls. "Now if you'll excuse me, 'just-a-pilot' has to just steer his tub."

She cocked her head to one side and smirked back. "Alright, have fun," she said as she got up, obligingly scooping up his empty cup as she passed.

_I always do_. "Later," he said distractedly.


	7. Win

Kaidan was relieved when the trembling mercenary lowered his gun from Doctor Wayne's face. But however content he felt at the fact the scientist would see some kind of justice, Corporal Toombs had a different kind of peace in mind for himself.

"Well Shepard, all the vids say you're the only survivor of Akuze... Who am I to argue?"

The single gunshot was terribly loud in the quiet of the underground lab, but the silence that followed it was almost deafening, drowning out the sound of Toombs' lifeless, armored body crumpling to the ground.

Shepard stood frozen, arm outstretched, balanced on the balls of her feet. For a moment the tableau hung, the only movement in the room was the spreading pool of blood under Toombs' head. Then, the air around her began to flicker in the telltale distortion of her biotic corona. Abruptly, her left arm shot up and pointed at the quivering scientist.

"Take him and get out," she snapped, without moving or turning her head. The dark energy flared and writhed about her like an angry wraith.

"Commander-"

"_OUT_!" she bellowed, so loud the word bounced off the walls.

Kaidan jumped, retreating a half step. Wrex was already moving, grabbing Doctor Wayne by the collar and bodily hauling him toward the door. Kaidan groped desperately for something to say, to do, but Wrex's looming bulk all but herded him out of the room. As the door hissed shut and locked, Kaidan tensed in anticipation of the sensation of gathering gravitational forces, the sound of breaking machinery. But as he reluctantly followed the krogan down the hall, neither came.

They emerged through a second automatic door into the main lab area. Struggling and stumbling along with Wrex, Doctor Wayne made an inarticulate noise of fear at the sight of the half-dozen dead mercenaries that lay sprawled on the floor and slumped against the furniture. A few sickly trails of blood smeared along the floor traced the final paths of his lab assistants.

Wrex negligently tossed the scientist against a large bank of equipment, making him trip over one of the dead mercenaries. Shuffling quickly away from the glassy-eyed corpse, Doctor Wayne made an attempt to compose himself.

"I... I haven't the faintest idea what mis- ah, C-Corporal Toombs was talking about," he stammered, obviously trying not to look at the dead mercenary. "The man was clearly unbalanced, as you saw..." He trailed off as Wrex took a step toward him.

The huge krogan cocked his head to one side and seemed to scrutinize Doctor Wayne, simply allowing his bulk to crowd the scientist's space.

"You... you can't kill me, I-" the man spluttered.

"I'm not going to," Wrex rumbled ominously, cutting him off. "You're Shepard's kill. Still..." Prodding the man with the end of his rifle, the krogan let the threat hang in the air.

As if suddenly remembering someone besides the looming alien was there, Doctor Wayne cast a pleading look at Kaidan, perhaps hoping his fellow human would come to his aid.

Kaidan just glowered back, giving him nothing. The sudden shock, the sense of helplessness of the past few minutes was rapidly mutating into a roiling anger that burned in his chest. He was terribly aware of the humming in his nerves, how easy it would be to simply break the man in half. Even as he furiously reminded himself there was no obvious evidence of Wayne's guilt, the murderous little impulse buzzed in his brain.

He tore his gaze away and looked around the lab, trying not to think about what might be happening a couple of rooms away. The dead mercenaries were low-rent, cheaply equipped, and hadn't posed much of a threat, except to the unarmed scientists. The antiseptically bright, blue-white lighting made the blood gleam, lending a sinister cast to the lab that lent weight to Toombs' rambling accusations of torture.

Kaidan looked around as the locking bar of the door behind him disengaged, and the portal slid open. Without breaking stride, Shepard stalked into the room, face set. She fixed a withering glare on Doctor Wayne and bore down on him like an advancing thunderstorm. Wide-eyed, the man started to mount a renewed plea of innocence. The commander seemed to uncoil like a snake as she yanked her pistol off her hip and jammed the business end into the terrified man's mouth in one smooth motion. Kaidan's breath caught in his throat.

"Just shut up. I'm not interested," she growled in a tone that threatened to make frost appear on the walls, "I want you to think. Think really, really hard about what you intend to tell the tribunal you're going to face. I'm a Spectre... and Spectres learn all sorts of interesting things. It's only a matter of time before I know everything there is to know about this Cerberus."

Her voice dropped as she leaned closer and spoke between clenched teeth. "If you had anything to do with this, you'd better pray they lock you in a deep, dark hole for the _rest_ of your life. Because if you weasel out, and then I end up finding out you so much as _sneezed_ in a way I don't like while you were on Akuze, I will _personally_ hunt you down and feed you to the biggest thresher I can find, one _piece_ at a time."

Doctor Wayne whimpered miserably as Shepard let that sink in. Then, none too delicately, she yanked the pistol free and tapped her long range comm pager.

"Joker!" she barked into the comm channel, loud enough that in his mind's eye Kaidan could almost see Joker falling out of his chair. "Radio Fifth Fleet for prisoner transport!"

"Aye aye, Commander!" came the reply. Mercifully, the sarcastic pilot had the good sense to leave it at that.

Kaidan gingerly allowed himself to breathe again, feeling a coldness settle into his stomach in place of the anger that seemed to have now drained away.

For a moment, he'd honestly been unsure of what Shepard would do.

* * *

Kaidan stepped out of the elevator into the _Normandy_'s cargo bay. He should have been asleep in his pod an hour ago, but the tension in his head refused to subside. He'd barely seen Commander Shepard in the 48 hours since the incident on Ontarom, and it gnawed at him. He hoped he wasn't looking down the barrel of another migraine; he dearly wanted to sleep tonight, at some point at least.

The Mako loomed large in its lockdown bay ahead of him, and somewhere off to the left Kaidan thought he could hear the low rumble of the sleeping krogan. Unbidden, Wrex had simply claimed a little corner as "his", and the crew had quickly learned that if they needed anything from that area, they were best served to wait until the temperamental mercenary was elsewhere.

Suddenly, his ears pricked at a familiar sound- the faint click and whir of a weapon unfolding. Instantly alert, he moved quickly into the dimly-lit space. Coming around the main support struts, he caught sight of a figure seated on a bench near the lockers. It was Shepard. She had a gun out at arm's length and seemed to be sighting down into the empty cargo bay. As he watched, she brought the pistol back down, thumbing the switch that caused it to fold back up into its compact storage shape.

"Commander?" he said carefully, "Is something wrong?"

Shepard startled slightly at his arrival, but recovered quickly. "The cowling sticks on deploy," she said, a thread of irritation in her voice. The pistol whirred open again, and she eyeballed it with a frown.

"May I?" he asked, holding out his hand.

She glanced up, then ejected the ammo slug and handed it to him.

_I don't want to know why it was loaded._ He deployed it, timing it compared to his own. "It's hard to tell..." He tried again. If there was any difference, he wouldn't have noticed unless it had been pointed out.

"Don't begrudge me my quarter second, Lieutenant."

"Wouldn't dream of it, ma'am." Soldiers tended to get picky, even downright superstitious, about their gear, and given the state of his own, it would have been hypocritical of him to call her on it. "Maybe there's dirt in the rails... let me take a look." He walked over to his locker and retrieved a field toolkit he'd stored there, then returned and sat down on the bench at what he judged to be a respectful distance from Shepard.

"My old sergeant would skin me if he ever found out I asked someone else to fix my sidearm," she said with a wry twist of her mouth. "I can field-strip an HK Lancer with my eyes closed like any proper marine... But this turian tech, I probably wouldn't put it back together properly. It would damage my 'Big Scary Spectre' image if the slide flew off next time I pulled it."

"I took my Haliat apart; it's not very different," he said, pulling out the pistol's main battery.

"Was there something wrong with it?" she inquired with a raised eyebrow.

"Um, no... I just wanted to have a look at how it worked," he answered, faintly embarrassed.

Shepard snickered softly. "My mother would have loved you to bits. I was always better at breaking things, much to her constant chagrin."

Suddenly wary, Kaidan tried to frame a question in his head that he hoped wouldn't stir up the wrong memories.

"What's Earth like?" she asked suddenly, before he'd come up with anything.

He paused in the middle of disengaging the slide. "You've... never been to Earth?" He tried not to sound incredulous.

"I have, if you want to be technical. But at the time bipedal locomotion was still a foreign concept, so I don't exactly remember much."

Kaidan let out a short laugh, trying to collect his thoughts. Most Alliance soldiers got their basic training on Earth, at least that he knew of. He considered asking where she'd trained, but decided against it. Easier to file the thought away for another time. _Tread carefully._

She slumped a bit and bent a knee to rest a heel on the edge of the bench. With arms folded loosely over her belly, staring out into the darkened cargo bay, her image was a jarring contrast to the fearsomely intense warrior from the other day, or even the cool and calculating commander he was growing used to. He was grateful for the fact that pulling apart the gun gave him something to concentrate on, curbing the urge to stare. The fluttery feeling was back in force. _I should have gone back __upstairs._

"Earth is... well, normal." He started disconnecting the rails that held the cowling and slide in place. "Which sounds silly to say, I know. But even though it isn't what it used to be thanks to our abuse, there's some deep-down part of you that knows you're supposed to be there. Like it's coded into you."

"I guess it sort of is," she mused.

"Yeah. Well, for now at least. I've heard of some people, spacers to the bone, not being able to handle walking out of the shuttle... They're so used to the idea of 'outside' being a hostile environment that they just can't deal with a space that isn't enclosed and controlled." Kaidan frowned slightly, drifting back through his own memory as he carefully cleaned out the rails.

"It really hit me coming back from Jump Zero," he continued. "Big as the station was, you always had this feeling that you were clinging to the edge of something... maybe because you could feel the a-grav planes- the pressure changes between sections, the air that was never exactly right. Maybe it was the implant, or homesickness, or just my imagination, but coming back into that big, stable gravity well was one of the most welcoming experiences I've ever had."

"Like coming home to mom?"

Kaidan chuckled. "If mom is damp and temperamental, ticked at us for neglecting her, and so damn complicated that getting a handle on her is sort of like trying to see the horizon with your nose to the ground, then yeah, more or less." He started putting the rails back on, double-checking their alignment.

"Mindoir was a little bitchy as parents go," Shepard said thoughtfully. "We'd get these tremendous windstorms from time to time, like the planet was trying to shake us right off."

"Tornadoes?"

"No... just straight-out high winds. We had to build breakers around the hab-units so they didn't end up in the lake every couple of months. As kids we used to leave paper airplanes and stuff like that outside, because we thought if we waited long enough, they'd blow clear around the planet and show up again a month later."

Kaidan fitted the slide and lower cowling back into place, running them loosely back and forth a few times.

"So did they?" he asked, trying to fill the encroaching silence.

"Come back? Nah, would have been funny, though." She lapsed back into contemplative thought.

He re-connected the power supply and waited while the gun performed a quick self-calibration.

"Here, try that." He handed her the folded pistol.

Shepard took it and held it out, staring at it critically as it deployed once, and then twice.

"That's better. Sometimes that extra fraction of a second..." Her voice trailed off. She ran her thumb over the precision-machined edge of cowling, quiet for several seconds. "I really wanted to win that one," she murmured finally.

Kaidan felt a prickly sensation down his back. He swallowed, groping for something to say. He couldn't even begin to put himself in her place, to re-discover someone you thought was dead, and then within two minutes watch them blow their own brains out right in front of you. _And all I'm going to come up with is some lame platitude._

"I don't know what else you could have done..." he ventured.

"Not losing my temper might have been a good start," Shepard said, sounding both annoyed and terribly weary. She leaned her head back against the bulkhead, some indeterminate emotion crawling across her features. Kaidan watched her out of the corner of his eye, thinking about how angry he'd gotten himself.

Abruptly Shepard stood up, almost making him jump. "Leave it to life to decide I don't have enough on my mind already to dig up some old graves, hm?" she said briskly. "Sorry to dump that on you, Alenko. It... probably wasn't appropriate."

"You didn't... I mean, I don't mind," he managed, flustered by her sudden change of demeanor.

For a moment she just looked at him, as if searching his face for something. He forced himself to return the scrutiny, distinctly feeling like a bug under glass.

"Thank you," she said simply, then hefted the pistol. "And for this. I'm sure I'm up past my bedtime, so I'll say good night, Lieutenant."

"Ma'am," he replied, resenting the formality of the word.

As Kaidan watched her disappear behind the support struts, headed for the elevator, he couldn't help but feel that he'd brushed up awfully close to... something. He slouched in his seat and raked his fingers through his hair, knitting them behind his neck and staring at the ceiling as if the answers were written somewhere on the dark metal.

He wanted very much to read into the conversation, the same way he wanted to read into the one that had happened four days ago. He'd expressed his concern about the Council, and then suddenly he was talking about BAaT. And of course she'd listened with genuine interest, asking thoughtful questions and considering what he had to say. In a way, he'd hoped he could tease out something about her own training, but had shied away from asking outright. He'd also skirted around Vyrnnus... He sincerely wanted Shepard to hear the truth from him alone, but hadn't been able to get the words out at that moment. Either way, for a few minutes, she'd treated him more like a friend than a subordinate.

But then, Shepard talked to everyone. Unlike his previous COs, who tended to cultivate aloof distance, the commander made it clear she was accessible and willing to listen to any of her crew. His own bias aside, her unique blend of authority and understanding was already fostering a particular strength of loyalty that would probably only continue to grow.

So where did the Spectre end and the real person begin? Her skill at masking what she really thought and instead projecting what the person she was talking to wanted to hear made it very hard to judge. The prudent thing to do would be to assume nothing at all and just do his job.

_But hope doesn't listen to reason._

It occurred to him then that he'd completely forgotten what he came down here for in the first place.


	8. Trap

Joker privately detested being docked with another ship, especially scummy, derelict cargo freighters... something about all that dead weight clamped to the side of the _Normandy_ made his teeth itch. He scowled at the display that showed the _Cornucopia_'s main VI login, which was politely requesting the lockout codes in order to access the ship's systems. Shepard had taken a small team over to the freighter to check it out, and Joker had hoped he could squeeze something of use out of the _Cornucopia_'s computer.

Suddenly the _Normany_'s sensors picked up a concussive force that jolted the cargo ship's superstructure. Frowning, Joker logged into the shore party's comm channel.

"Commander, I picked up an... explosion or something in there. Everything alright?" he asked tentatively. As he spoke he loaded another decryption algorithm and set it running against the ship's lockouts. Several seconds of silence stretched out, nothing but a soft fuzz emanating from the comm channel. He paged the shore party's hardsuit transponders. Three reported a physical breach- Vakarian, Williams, Shepard.

_Crap._ "Shore party, respond!" he tried again, a chill in his gut.

"Alenko here..." came a shaky reply. "Some kind of... trap, proximity charge... Goddammit, I can't see anything."

"What's happening? I can't get access to any of the ship's systems." Joker tried to keep his voice calm, even.

"Smoke... an incendiary bomb... the fire suppression system isn't responding! Commander! Can you hear me?"

"...'tenant..." Shepard's voice sounded gravelly.

"Shepard!" The lieutenant's voice pitched higher, sharp with worry.

"Stop!" she barked, then coughed a few times. "There might be more devices, scan for proximity sensors!" she continued, and the change in timbre of her voice told Joker she'd sealed her visor.

"... aye aye!" Alenko responded, sounding like it was the least thing in the world he wanted to do.

"Vakarian, don't move," the commander continued. "You caught some shrapnel. Williams, respond!"

There was an answering groan. "'m sure that's not s'posed to be there..." the chief's voice slurred.

On Joker's console, the decryption algorithm stopped running, reporting failure. He ground his teeth in frustration- hacking wasn't his specialty. He had some basic tools at his disposal, but they were obviously not up to the task. His console remained stubbornly fixed on the ship's login screen, awaiting codes he didn't have. _Shrapnel. _The images that word conjured made his stomach turn.

"Commander, do you want me to send in backup?" he offered.

"No! The whole place might be wired. Garrus, what part of 'don't move' didn't you understand?"

_Shrapnel. _Joker paged Doctor Chakwas, reporting injuries. One turian, two human, forward airlock.

"Clear within twenty meters!" the lieutenant reported.

"Good, come here," the commander said. "I'll go-"

"Hostiles!" Williams' voice pierced through the comm channel.

Joker looked sharply at the sensor readouts. He couldn't get any information from the _Cornucopia_'s on-board systems, but connected as they were by the airlocks, the _Normandy_'s sensors could discern the vibrations that meant gunfire. They also began picking up random but powerful electrical discharges that shocked briefly through the hull before being soaked up by the cargo ship's drive core.

"Alenko, get Vakarian to the airlock; I'll cover Williams," Shepard ordered.

Every second stretched into a maddeningly long interval as more gunfire rattled along the superstructure. The electrical fluctuations continued and Joker started to seriously worry about how much the _Cornucopia_'s core could take before invoking the kind of massive flashover discharge every Navy man in the history of FTL travel had nightmares about.

Suddenly he picked up another concussive explosion somewhere within the cargo ship.

"Not too bright, are they?" Williams' voice was thick but strangely jovial.

There was a grim chuckle from the commander. "Nice shot."

Seconds later his neglected login to the _Cornucopia_'s systems lit up like fireworks.

_Oh for fuck's sake..._ "Commander!" Joker called urgently into the comms, "The scuttle charges just armed! Get the hell out of there!"

"Figures," Williams grouched.

"Time to move, Chief!" Shepard declared.

Jaw clenched, Joker tried not to watch the scuttle charges count down as the sensor array picked up more gunfire and erratic discharges. Searching for something to make things go faster, he disengaged the secondary docking clamps holding the ships together, but there was little else to be done. Gritting his teeth, he kept his hands poised over the control console. _Come on come on come on..._

In what felt like an eternity later, Shepard's voice snapped over the comms, "All clear, Joker!" His readouts registered the outer door beginning to close.

The instant the airlock cycled shut, Joker punched the primary release and put the maneuvering thrusters to full burn. He slewed the nose of the _Normandy_ toward the ailing _Cornucopia_, shunting full power to the forward shield systems and then pulling up reverse engine power as fast as he dared. The _Normandy_ began to accelerate away from the merchant ship, presenting as small a cross section as its pilot could manage.

Within moments, the _Cornucopia _bulged and exploded noiselessly, a shattering force erupting from its drive core and tearing the ship to pieces in under a second. The remaining oxygen burned off in a brief orange glow, quickly dispersed by the blue-shifted distortion wave of dark energy that ballooned outwards. A quivering tremor traveled through the _Normandy _as the wave interfered with its own drive field. Joker logged a few debris hits, but the shields drained too much of the rubble's kinetic energy for it to do any damage, and the pieces skipped harmlessly off the sharply slanted hull. He throttled the engines back, running a forward burn long enough to slow back down.

"The commanding officer is now aboard," the _Normandy'_s VI chirped heedlessly, "XO Pressley stands relieved."

"Yeah thanks for that," Joker muttered. He craned his neck past his chair to look behind him as the inner door of the airlock hissed open. The two marines that had been hovering outside it went in, emerging a moment later half-carrying Chief Williams. Her armor was scorched black along the right front side, and there were a number of gouges taken out of the heavy protective plates. A few pieces of jagged metal stuck out of the gaps, leaking trails of blood through the sooty coating. One particularly vicious-looking shard was lodged in her thigh. The marines arranged her quickly on a stretcher on the floor, then picked it up and started aft toward the stairs.

Alenko came out next, supporting a badly limping Garrus. The turian's armored back was also decorated with burns, scrapes and bits of jagged metal, one notably large chunk protruding from his right shoulder. The two of them also started aft.

Joker sat back, chewing his lip absently. He hesitated for a second before punching up a private comm channel to the lieutenant. "Hey Alenko, anything bad?"

"Uh, no I don't think so," the lieutenant responded shortly, his voice tight. "Flesh wounds... nothing Doctor Chakwas can't handle."

"Okay." Joker shut off the link just as the clump of armored boots on the floor came up behind him, followed swiftly by the cloying smell of burnt composite materials. Shepard appeared beside him, hand raised to her helmet to cycle her faceplate open. Her armor was scorched as well, but in patches, and she seemed largely unhurt.

"Commander, should I just start a tab for your just-in-time saves? My rates are very reasonable," he asked, composing his face into a mask of bland innocence.

"I'll buy you a steak dinner next time we dock at the Citadel," she said laconically, still breathing a bit hard form the narrow escape.

Joker steepled his fingers. "Hmm... as long as it's the real thing and not that vat grown crap."

"Naturally," the commander replied. She thumbed the neck seal on her helmet open and pulled it off, then smoothed back the unruly hair beneath. A sheen of sweat covered her dark skin, streaking the sooty marks on her cheeks. "Any damage?" she asked.

"Chipped the paint job, that's about it."

"Good. Get me a scan of the debris. I want to know if there's any unusual readings."

Joker punched up the scanning array. "Doesn't look like it," he said after a few seconds, "The amount of it suggests there wasn't much cargo to speak of."

The commander leaned in to look at the display, brow creased in thought. Joker glanced over and noticed a gash in her leg armor, just shy of her hip.

"You're bleeding all over my nice clean deck-plates," he quipped uncomfortably. She wasn't really, but it wasn't often he was confronted this directly with the side effects of combat. _Shrapnel._

"Everyone got banged up. Feel like volunteering for the next mission?" she asked coolly.

Joker barked a short, humorless laugh. He had a standard-issue Hahne-Kedar sidearm in his locker, but he considered it decorative.

"The whole ship was a geth booby-trap, there for any Citadel ship to stumble upon," Shepard continued, focused on the readouts.

"Geth...?"

"The crew was husked, the operating system compromised... We couldn't get to the logs in time."

Joker couldn't help but be grateful that he'd never seen a geth husk in the metallic flesh. "Looks like you got lucky, Commander. Williams and Vakarian caught a lot of grief there..."

"Luck had nothing to do with it," Shepard murmured absently, staring at the console. Then she stood straight and looked over at him. "That piece of shrapnel sticking out of Garrus' shoulder would have caught me about here," she said, pointing to a spot near the middle her chest.

Joker raised an eyebrow. _Saved by the turian... Alenko must've just _loved _that._

"Set course for Almarcrux and run a charge dump. Then back to the relay," she said crisply.

"Aye aye, ma'am."

Commander Shepard turned on her heel and strode away, leaving the lingering burnt smell in the cockpit. Joker slouched in his seat and closed his eyes briefly, not really wanting to look out the viewport at the drifting debris.

_Shrapnel._


	9. Mirror

With the course of recent events, Liara could only think about how wonderful it was to see the Citadel again, even if some of the company made her slightly uncomfortable.

The source of Chief Williams' antagonism was clear enough; mistrust, both of Liara as the daughter of Benezia and of non-humans in general. Liara had come to learn that humans had a hard time understanding how a person could be so separate from their parent- in their short lives, family was more often than not nearly omni-present. Lieutenant Alenko was harder to figure out. He was quite affable most of the time, but on a few occasions she'd sensed an undercurrent of dislike. Perhaps she had accidentally offended some uniquely male ethic?

To Liara, human gender politics was an impenetrable morass, something humans themselves only seemed to be aware of on a subconscious level. Since coming aboard the _Normandy_ she'd uploaded some papers from the university to read about it, and while she'd come to understand the broad strokes, the subtleties were numerous and quite beyond her. It was horrifying enough to read about the various injustices visited upon one gender by the other throughout their history, and to realize that the ghosts of those crimes still haunted their everyday interactions. How sad, how tragic, to have a whole species divided against itself.

But then, humans were adaptable and eager to learn, able to change startlingly fast. _A species in their maiden stage?_ This thought made Liara smile, and she spent some time reflecting on its permutations. It brought a certain optimism, knowing that given positive influences they could possibly grow out of their less productive habits. It was dizzying to know some of these changes might even take place within her lifetime.

Humans. What a strange and fascinating lot they were. It was oddly refreshing to be among people for whom the stigma of her pureblood birth was an utterly meaningless distinction, and a peerless intellectual challenge to try and begin to understand the nuances of their culture and interactions. And Shepard... how compelling she was. Liara couldn't help but feel a thrill every time the commander came to speak to her. Even after the terrible events on Novaria, the hours of biting cold, the monstrous Rachni, and the confrontation with her tormented mother, Shepard's mere presence seemed to make all the horror fade away into nothingness.

And so here in an airy docking bay of the Citadel, it was all that much harder to watch Shepard hand her sidearm over to the lieutenant, then walk unarmed and unarmored toward someone with a gun. Liara wished she could hear what was being said, but the words that passed between the two women were swallowed by the vast open space all around them. It was all Liara could do to keep from intervening when the crazed woman yelled something and pointed the pistol at Shepard's head not once but three times.

There was a small measure of comfort in realizing the two human marines at her side didn't seem to like having to stay back any more than Liara herself. Even from a few feet away from them she could feel the nervous burn of tension rolling off them. Alenko had a white-knuckled grip on Shepard's pistol and Williams fingered her own sidearm, watching the spectacle with narrow eyes.

It only really hit home what Liara had just witnessed when the woman finally relented, tears running down her face as Shepard carefully put her arms around her and eased the gun out of her hand. _Thank the Goddess, such perfect calm! How I would have ruined things if I'd blundered in..._

There was a murmur of relief from the trio of human soldiers, and Liara glanced again at her companions. Williams still watched Shepard, arms folded, a distant expression on her face. The lieutenant stared studiously down at the commander's sidearm, frowning slightly as he turned it over in his hands.

Back up the gangway, Shepard lowered the now-sedated woman gently to the ground, lingering a few seconds to make sure she was comfortable, then stood up and walked back toward them. She stopped to exchange a few words with the grateful soldiers, who saluted her and took back the stolen gun before hurrying off to look after the woman. Shepard watched them go, then strode back to her crew wearing an expression that bordered on beatific. "Thank you, Lieutenant," she said, accepting her gun back from Alenko and clipping it to her belt.

"Ma'am," he replied, his voice strange.

"Let's go, Udina doesn't like to be kept waiting," the commander said, starting toward the elevator.

"He can damn well wait for this," the chief said hotly as they fell into step behind Shepard.

"Agreed, but it doesn't mean he won't complain about it," the commander answered.

Williams rolled her eyes. "I can't believe that jerk represents all of us."

"That jerk plays politics so we don't have to," Shepard said as she touched the elevator panel. "_I _sure as hell wouldn't want his job."

Liara was somewhat appalled to hear an ambassador referred to with such casual disregard. It was jarring, considering how the marines normally acted around authority figures. But then, Liara was learning that respect among humans was a many-layered thing, and just because they saluted someone didn't mean that person had earned it.

"That girl... was from Mindoir, right ma'am?" Williams asked as the elevator hummed to life, heading down toward the ring where the Presidium met the Wards.

"Yes. Taken during the same raid that killed my parents."

"Crazy. There but for the grace of God go I, huh?"

"A mirror darkly," Shepard said simply.

Liara frowned. She understood the obvious subtext of these statements, but they were so unlike the normal human language that she knew they must be cultural references of some kind. Unable to place them herself, she was on the verge of asking when the chief spoke again.

"How did she get away?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Shepard answered, brow creased in thought. "It wasn't easy to understand her... She kept talking in weird metaphors and referring to herself as 'it'. I think she had a fairly strong case of Stockholm syndrome..."

"What's that?" Liara asked, still trying to keep up with these human phrases.

"It's a term for a psychological condition," Alenko explained. "When someone is captive long enough, they can start to sympathize with their captors, even to the point of helping them. A survival instinct, basically."

"Goddamn slaver scum, doing that to a little kid...," the chief growled.

"The kids are the best takes, Chief," Shepard said grimly. "Easiest to break and train. They were spoiled for choice on Mindoir... anyone who didn't fit their specifications got shot. And anyone who fought back..."

"Is that... where that came from?" Liara asked on impulse, pointing at the mysterious mark on Shepard's arm.

There was a heartbeat of silence, filled only by the hum of the elevator. Liara could see the muscles on the lieutenant's jaw standing out.

"I didn't fight that day, Liara," Shepard said, her head cocked slightly to one side as she looked the asari in the eye. "I was sixteen, a teenager, unarmed and untrained. I didn't fight, I hid." There was no anger in her voice as she spoke, no resentment toward Liara for asking, but an unmistakable thread of bitterness hung around the edge of her words.

Before Liara had the chance to say anything more, the elevator door cycled open and Shepard strode out into the C-Sec lobby, headed for the mass transit terminal. Liara found herself momentarily overcome, absorbing the horror of it all. _Sixteen! _ Unimaginably young to suffer such a thing. It made the recent events beneath the glacier of Novaria seem pale and distant. At least Liara herself had been able to decide when she wanted to leave her mother's side, had a chance to become her own person before loosing Benezia to Saren's will. These humans, so close to their families... to have all of that wrenched away before even learning to step out into the world on one's own, to loose all connections, all community in one stroke, and be left alone in all the galaxy...

"Hey, you coming?"

Liara snapped out of her thoughts to look up to the chief, standing in the doorway of the elevator.

"I... yes," Liara said hastily, ignoring the marine's narrow-eyed look and trotting out after the commander.  
_  
I don't care what you think, Gunnery Chief Williams. Shepard told me plainly I could ask, and so I did._

_And I will again._


	10. Drone

Kaidan had never seen Alliance military combat drones act like this, much less the ones intended for training. He tried to imagine the scope of the hacking job someone would had to have undertaken to corrupt the Lunar training facility so completely, but it boggled the mind. The VIs that ran these facilities were supposed to be isolated, only accessible via an on-site physical connection. Even then, it should have taken several days worth of effort to get through the VI's firewalls, unless it was some kind of inside job.

But even that possibility still didn't add up. There was no monetary profit in corrupting a lone training VI, and wasn't nearly spectacular enough to suggest the job was some kind of attention-getting terrorist action. It was either someone's idea of a sick joke, or something entirely new. He had trouble believing a mere system fault could get this badly out of hand on its own. And anyway, that didn't account for the drones' strange behavior.

It nagged at him. He'd operated around combat drones for years, even tinkered with them. He wasn't an AI specialist, but he knew the basics of their distributed-network operating system, and the architecture within which they made their strategic decisions. They had a reasonably deep set of possible reactions to a given situation, but at their heart they were still machines and fairly predictable- especially without the extra human input that usually came from controllers in the field.

Kaidan began to understand why Admiral Hackett had called on Shepard to deal with this instead of a local military unit. The drones weren't supposed to charge headlong into their attackers, weaving erratically and being far more heedlessly aggressive than usual. Never mind the other threats the rogue VI threw at them.

Shepard, Tali, Williams, Garrus and himself had fought their way past turrets, kinetic barrier systems, poisonous gas and waves of combat drones into the third section of the facility when things got out of hand. An overwhelming number of drones boiled out of the rear of the facility, catching them in an area without much cover and facing an enemy that had no interest in hanging back and allowing themselves to be picked off at leisure.

"Everybody back down the hall, move it!" Shepard barked, pointing at the door they'd just come out of.

Firing as they went, the team piled into the narrow hall, Shepard bringing up the rear. A few drones skimmed past the door, as if unsure how to assault the corridor. Kaidan turned to glance ahead of them when a teeth-rattling explosion punched the air around him, making him stumble.

"Goddamn machines!" Williams yelled. Kaidan heard the chatter of her assault rifle impacting kinetic shields.

When he looked back around, he saw the corridor wall blackened with a blast mark, and the hot tang of chemical explosive filled the air. Garrus was on his knees, shaking his head with obvious disorientation as a well of blue blood ran out his nose and off his forehead to spatter on the floor. Apparently unhurt, Tali quickly reversed direction and hopped around him, firing her shotgun at the chief's target; a red-striped rocket drone advancing down the corridor.

Shepard sprawled awkwardly on the ground, not moving.

Kaidan clenched his teeth against the surge of panic that clamped around his chest even as he stepped back and fired at the drone over Williams' shoulder. He'd known this could happen, tried to be ready for it... even so the sensation was unexpectedly intense. He forced the mental door closed and tried to keep his head on the battlefield, keep processing all the inputs. Status indicators in his HUD from Shepard's hardsuit showed no armor breach, no blood pressure loss. _Focus! She's just knocked out...  
_  
Mercifully, the rocket drone's shields failed before it could fire again, and the combined gunfire quickly dispatched it._  
_  
One particularly sobering thought brought everything into perspective. _If she's down, I'm in command._

"Let's keep moving!" Kaidan ordered, trying to channel Shepard's unflappable calm. The drones seemed to be hesitating, and he wasn't about to miss the opportunity. He scooped up the commander's shotgun and then gingerly hooked his arms under her shoulders, wishing he had more time to properly evaluate her injuries before moving her. But there just wasn't time, and they couldn't stay in this empty hallway.

"C'mon, Garrus!" Tali said, looping an arm under the turian's shoulder and hauling him to his feet.

Williams quickly stepped up beside Kaidan and helped drag Shepard toward the far door. "Shit, LT..." the chief said between her teeth.

"I don't think it's bad," he replied curtly, holding the clawing worry at bay.

As they passed through the door, Kaidan glanced up to check for pursuit, but the corridor remained empty, the far door having closed automatically. Looking down the empty hall, the realization of what Shepard must have had in mind came to him. _She wasn't retreating.  
_  
"More signals headed this way," Tali announced, focused on her omni-tool.  
_  
_Kaidan hauled the commander to one side of the open doorway, satisfied that she'd be out of the immediate line of fire, and left her shotgun close at hand. A knife's edge of choice hung before him, and he was acutely aware of the lives that depended on it. _We can't move fast anymore, and if they surround us again..._

Garrus' mandibles flexed in agitation as he looked from Shepard to the hallway. "There's too many of them! We should-"

"Form up on the door!" Kaidan cut him off, decision made. "They'll be bunched up in the corridor, prioritize area attacks and put the reds down first!" As he spoke, he pulled out three ECM grenades and set them charging, putting his shoulder up to the open doorway. Williams automatically took up position on the opposite side, ramming a fresh penetrator ammo slug into her assault rifle.

Garrus seemed to hesitate for a second, then pulled out his own ECMs, ignoring the blue blood still dripping down his face as he loaded one into the launch rail on his assault rifle.

"Here they come..." Tali warned. She was on one knee, omni-tool lit, and seemed to be doing something with a grenade. Kaidan had no idea what she was up to, but forced himself to trust her judgment. Shepard seemed to treat the quarian more like a self-sufficient disruptive element than a core fighter, and he saw no reason to start barking orders at her.

In any case, there wasn't time. The door at the opposite end of the hallway cycled open and the drones burst through, a swarm of angry metal hornets striped in glowing white and red. A withering hail of gunfire cut through the air in the doorway, and a trio of missiles hissed through the empty space to explode against the far end of the room.

Kaidan was grateful the drones weren't smart enough to aim for the floor and catch them in the explosion. He drew a breath, then executed a mnemonic form, his field of view distorting blue as his dark energy barrier flared to life. Williams was already firing down the corridor, her powerful kinetic shield hissing and sparking from the assault. Kaidan pushed the charged ECM grenade into the launcher, then leaned out enough to fire it into the mass of drones. Within seconds there was answering sounds of Tali and Garrus' grenade launchers, followed by two buzzing cracks of detonation.

The lead drones faltered, bright shocks coruscating across their frames and arcing between them as their stabilizer vanes shuddered and flailed. Kaidan briefly thought one of the grenades had failed to go off, but suddenly the lead red-striped rocket drone slewed around and fired point-blank into its malfunctioning fellows, resulting in a spectacular explosion of flying metal.

"Hah, it worked!" Tali crowed as she brought her shotgun to bear. She braced easily against the heavy recoil of the high explosive round that blew another hole in the disorganized swarm of drones.

Garrus knelt on one knee beside the chief, his guns and grenades laid out neatly in front of him. He alternated between them with swift precision, firing a high-explosive round out of the sniper rifle then quickly switching the overheated weapon for his assault rifle, snatching up a waiting grenade as he did so.

"Keep the pressure on!" Kaidan called out as he fired into the mass, splitting his attention between picking targets and watching his HUD display as the next grenade charged. Down the corridor, the drones' friend-foe designators caught up with this unexpected turn of events, and as one they turned on the rogue rocket drone and shredded it. But the grenades had done their work, buying the team precious seconds. Even as the next wave of drones pushed down the hall, another salvo of ECM grenades stripped their shields and disrupted their firing systems.

There seemed to be no end to the drones as they made inexorable progress down the hall until they were only feet away from the open door. Swearing, Williams was forced to duck behind the wall to let her shield recharge, her armor scored here and there by rounds that had penetrated the weakening barrier. The air around her rifle shimmered with escaping heat. The chief didn't stay hidden long, leaning quickly back out even as Tali twisted out of the way of a missile that missed her by inches. Kaidan felt his nerves crawl with the wash of an ECM grenade that went off close by, just as a few drones charged the open doorway.

Reacting fast, Williams' left arm snapped out and caught the lead drone by a stabilizer vane. With a grunt, she yanked the machine back and smashed it bodily into the one behind it, holding the two together and jamming the muzzle of her assault rifle into the mass of metal, one-handedly unloading a point-blank salvo into their cores.

Kaidan caught a flash of red in the corner of his eye and whipped his head around to see a red-striped rocket drone bull past the doorway and into the room behind them. He could hear the servos whine as the turret started to swivel around to target them, stabilizers splaying like the legs of some metal insect. Knowing his pistol wouldn't penetrate the drone's kinetic shielding in time, he instinctually lashed out with his biotics. As the blue corona boiled up around him, his brain furiously tried to remind him that the drone's a-grav lift system would simply compensate for whatever he did to the local field. Without thinking, he pictured the sensation of Shepard's shearing warp and desperately tried to will it into being, pulling gravity in from all sides as the the liquid rush rolled through his body.

The drone froze in mid-air, wreathed in a peculiar distortion. The machine's servos whirred and clicked, but it stayed firmly in place, pinned by the blanket of dark energy that tried to force it down into a single point in space. Kaidan blinked in disbelief, but couldn't spare a second to contemplate whatever it was he'd just done. He turned quickly back to the hallway and kept firing at the remaining drones. Another one abruptly went rogue, resulting in a vicious short-range firefight between the machines that granted his team precious moments to refocus their attacks.

Suddenly a shotgun barked behind him, making him jump and whirl around. He bumped into Shepard, who was perched on one knee behind him and aiming at the frozen rocket drone. Just as he felt the biotic field weaken, Garrus' sniper rifle cracked, and a large hole appeared as if by magic in the drone's main body. It dropped like a stone, unmoving. Within seconds, his companions' weapons finally fell silent.

"Are we clear?" Kaidan asked, looking down the hallway quickly.

"Yeah, that's how we do it in the marines!" Williams exulted, aiming a vicious kick at one of the sputtering drones. The turret popped off and went skittering down the hall to land among the debris.

Tali had her omni-tool lit again. "No active signals, Lieutenant," she reported.

Swimming in the heady mix of adrenaline and relief, Kaidan breathed deeply, then holstered his pistol and helped Shepard get to her feet. The commander blinked a few times as she looked around, obviously trying to re-orient herself. The paint along the leading edge of her helmet was scraped and scored.

"How long..." she asked, her face twisted in consternation.

"Less than a minute, ma'am," Kaidan answered, watching her with concern.

"Still with us, Skipper?" the chief asked, sauntering over. Her eyes were alight with the thrill of victory.

"Yeah, I... got my bell rung pretty good," Shepard answered, knocking her helmet with the heel of her hand. "Is everyone alright? Garrus...?"

"I'm fine, Commander," the turian assured her, collecting his weapons and getting to his feet. He pointed to his bloodied head. "Also with the... bell ringing, but I can still fight."

"No sweat, ma'am, LT stepped up," Williams said, giving Kaidan an amiable shove.

Shepard looked him in the eye. "Good work," she said, then looked around at all of them. "Everyone... that could have gone very badly if they'd gotten the drop on us again."

Kaidan vaguely wondered if getting medals from admirals would feel better than the rush of pride that came with her simple words. He sort of doubted it.

"I think I've got the signal source isolated, Commander," Tali said brightly.

"Excellent," Shepard said. "Let's go shut this thing down for good." The commander led the way back down the hallway, now littered with smoking metal parts, which they all eyed suspiciously as they passed.

Suddenly Kaidan remembered what he'd done to the stray rocket drone. Now where had that come from? He flexed his hands speculatively, wondering if the new amp he'd gotten recently had something to do with it. He supposed he could ask Liara about it; her mastery of biotics exceeded anyone else's that he'd ever met. But he still wasn't sure how comfortable he would be doing so. She was friendly and extremely intelligent, but he couldn't help feeling a niggling resentment for the amount of time Shepard spent talking to her. He knew full well that was patently childish, but unfortunately that didn't make the feeling go away.

Kaidan shook off the random speculation. All that could wait until they'd solved the problem at hand, and he wasn't going to let down his guard while the corrupted VI still might have more surprises in store for them. As Tali led the team through the eerily quiet facility toward the source, Kaidan distinctly felt like he was being watched. The training areas were full of movable baffles that could be re-arranged to simulate different battlefield layouts, and he found himself imagining them all moving at once to try to block them, or pushing in and sprouting spikes like some bad adventure vid. He watched his surroundings as the team moved through, suspicious of the entire environment.

But it seemed the onslaught of drones had been the final, desperate gambit of the rogue computer. It was a circuitous route to the well-protected central core, through a heavy door with an encrypted lock. The passcodes had been thoroughly scrambled, but Kaidan knew how it was built. Admiral Hackett had provided full specs for the facility, including sufficient clearance to get in-depth construction plans for all security measures, which Kaidan had studied before the mission. In the interest of expediency, he didn't bother with lengthy decryption, instead using the semi-molten omni-gel to burn through the lock's main power feed. With that cut, a hard-coded safety protocol overrode the lock and opened the door.

Shepard led the way inside, gun drawn and hardsuit sealed against another possible gas attack.

"There it is, Commander," Tali said, pointing to the unassuming computer stack in the center of the room.

"Lieutenant?" Shepard said.

"It matches the specs, ma'am," he answered. "Those other ones are secondary processing units, and there's the main transformer. They're all passive systems, the main VI is housed in that central one." He pointed out the various stacks. Garrus was examining the setup with obvious interest.

"Great, so can we blow it up and go home?" Williams asked, fingering her rifle.

"That's the idea, Chief," Shepard pronounced. She pulled out two concussive grenades and locked them together. "Everyone out the door."

"Putting the grenades here will cause the most damage, Commander," Tali said helpfully, pointing out a power junction at the side of the stack.

Shepard dialed a new delay into the grenades, then set them where the quarian had indicated before hurrying out the door to rejoin the rest of them. Twenty seconds later, a satisfying blast echoed through the underground chamber. The lighting flared brightly then flicked off, plunging them into darkness. Kaidan's comm system picked up a soft, warbling hiss as the background hum of the facility's systems spun down into silence.

"Well then," Shepard said, somewhere in the dark.

"Total cascade failure," Tali mused.

Light bloomed as Williams flicked on her helmet-mounted lamp. "Guess it's dead then, huh?" she asked as she peered back into the room, flashing the light back and forth.

Kaidan's HUD informed him that his comm system had recorded an embedded signal in the static picked up as the VI had shut down. The signal was very basic, an unencrypted spew of binary that repeated four letters.

_HELP_

Kaidan felt a little chill. _Okay... the engineers will have fun with _that_._


	11. Monster

Joker sat in the empty mess hall absently shuffling his deck of cards. It was a few hours after shift change, and now that the other players had left for rack-time, he was enjoying the rare moment of silence and solitude. The cards were somewhat of an anachronism, but he'd always preferred the tactility of them over the usual datapad-based games. It gave his hands something to do while his mind wandered.

He startled when Chief Williams abruptly rounded the bulkhead from the crew area. Normally he should have heard her coming, but evidently she wasn't wearing boots. Her hair was tied back hastily into a loosely-tied ponytail that left several strands astray, and the top of her fatigues had been neglected in place of a white undershirt. Despite the look of foul humor on her face, the whole effect was still enough to send his mind straying off in an entirely unexpected direction.

_I've been in space for too long._ "Good morning, sunshine," he drawled casually.

Ashley glanced at him with a sour look, then stumped over to the meal system interface and glared at it, finally stabbing a few buttons. Joker was fairly sure the machine produced her request faster than usual, if only to be freed from her stare. She scooped up the proffered mug and turned back toward the mess.

"Poker night with the boys?" she asked dryly, eyeing the cards as she came around the table.

Joker put on an innocent face. "Perish the thought... gambling's against regs."

Her raised eyebrow said exactly how much she believed that line. She dropped into a chair and planted her elbows on the table, mug raised to sip from its mysterious contents.

"Care for a hand?" Joker asked, putting down the deck of cards and smoothing the sides.

"What am I going to bet, my socks?" Ashley quipped. "Anyway, I probably have the world's lousiest poker face."

"I'm sure you have more of that coffee squirreled away somewhere..." he said speculatively.

Her eyes narrowed over the mug. "You're going to have to try harder than that to get your paws on my stash, flyboy."

"Fine, fine." Joker spread his hands. "So what are you doing up? I'm sure it wasn't to come subject yourself to my company."

"Monsters under the bed," Ashley said with a slight twist to her mouth. She set the mug down and reached out to slide a pair of cards off the top of the deck.

"Find a krogan under your pillow?" he inquired mildly.

"Now that's one hell of a bedbug..." she said distractedly as she set the two cards against each other in an inverted V.

"Just pull the covers over your head," Joker suggested. "Everyone knows monsters can't conquer the all-mighty blanket."

"Apparently these ones can," she muttered, taking another sip of her drink. She then picked up another set of cards and carefully set them up next to the first set, then placed a third flat over the a-frames. She had extremely steady hands, something Joker concluded must contribute to her dangerous reputation with a sniper rifle.

The pilot idly scratched his chin. Every ship was a unique creature, not just in the engineering and software that made it up, but also in the collection of humans who inhabited it. Over the years, Joker had always made a point of paying attention to all the elements and how they interacted, because it was all those things that made his ship function. It wasn't just how the drive field danced, it was also the push and pull of the chain of command, and beneath that the other, all-too-human elements; the things the military preferred to pretend didn't exist. It always struck him as somewhat absurd that despite the depth of modern psychological studies, Fleet Operations would still rather stick their collective fingers in their ears and sing than admit that their soldiers might get angry, scared, jealous, hurt or - god forbid - be attracted to one another.

There were always marines stationed on Alliance ships as well, and they were in many ways their own entity. Joker had always been fairly removed from the down-and-dirty business of operations on the ground; his head was always in space, intent on the numerous and engrossing subtleties of flying. He'd mingled, played cards with some of them, and listened to their stories that grew wilder for the telling, but it had always been easiest to stay on his side of the line. They ran the gamut, but there was always a percentage of muscle-bound meat-heads who didn't have time for the creaky-legged cripple.

These days, however, the lines blurred, especially now that a marine was his CO. One that actually came to talk to him, tolerated his sarcastic mouth with aplomb, and seemed to implicitly trust his skills. Or now that one was sitting in front of him, talking offhandedly about what he could only conjecture to be some kind of combat-stress induced nightmare. Four fading pink lines interspersed along her right arm traced the past invasions of shrapnel from the _Cornucopia_ incident.

"I always thought aliens were pretty weird," she said absently as she collected more building materials. "I still do, but at least they have something going on, you know? Maybe... whatever a soul is for them. But I guess the real monsters are the ones that have nothing behind their eyes... if they even have eyes at all. Bad as we've seen it, all I gotta do is think about the people on Eden Prime who looked at a geth husk and _recognized_ the person it used to be. Everything they were is gone but they're still walking around, and trying to tear your face off on top of it all."

"Hanar don't have eyes," he mused vaguely, "and I can't see them being very intimidating..." _Oh that was a good one. Idiot._

"All I can think about when I see a jelly is whether or not they might taste good with rice and wasabi," Ashley said, quirking a smile as she set up another A-frame.

"This one asks that you please put the chopsticks away." Joker imitated a hanar's politely enunciated cadence.

"It was terrible, officer! Soy sauce everywhere!" Ashley said in an exaggerated, pleading tone.

She grinned as Joker chuckled. As she started on a second row of cards on top of the first, Joker shifted and accidentally bumped the table with his elbow. Ashley froze, hands poised with another a-frame hovering over the first row as she watched the tenuous stack stop vibrating. Her eyes flicked over to him with a slightly venomous glare, making Joker inch his chair back slightly and cram his hands in his pockets in contrition. Ashley went back to carefully placing the cards, tip of her tongue caught between her teeth in an expression of concentration.

"I always wanted to get the whole fifty-two up...," she said absently. "But one of my sisters always knocked it over, because that's the fun part."

"Not many people have an actual deck these days."

"The one I used was my dad's, but they were pretty worn out, and the ace of diamonds was bent so you could always tell which one it was." She paused, balanced a card on one corner and spun it under her finger. "I always wanted to try that trick where you throw the cards in the air, then plug the ace with a gun."

"Be nice to my cards," Joker said with mock concern.

Ashley playfully balanced the card on its edge, then let go and mimed shooting at it. "Blam," she muttered as the card overbalanced and flopped over, revealing the jack of hearts.

"Breaking hearts all over the galaxy... Poor Jack," Joker lamented.

"Oh yeah, that's me," she said sarcastically. "Breaking the geth's little plastic hearts, every one I see." She held her hands out in imitation of a rifle.

"You should try pressing the button on a main gun; nothing says love like a quarter-pound of iron moving at relativistic speeds..."

"Yeah yeah, yours is bigger. Congratulations," she smirked. "But _mine_ has inferno rounds."

Joker raised an eyebrow. "Kinky."

"The penetrators are only for special occasions," she said with a mischievous grin.

He opened his mouth to retort, then closed it again. "Nope, I'm not touching that one," he said finally.

"The grandmaster of snark passes on the bait? I'm disappointed."

"Self-preservation, Chief," Joker demurred. "You can run faster than me, and I go all to pieces from anything worse than harsh language."

"Aw, well, don't worry, yours is still bigger." Ashley stood up and brought the mug back to the cleaning system. "Back to the front lines," she pronounced, then yawned and stretched expansively.

"But you didn't even make it halfway through the deck..." Joker said. "I promise I won't knock 'em over."

Ashley shot him a narrow grin. "_Sure_ you wouldn't, at least not 'till I got into the forties. Nah, just letting the shields recharge. You think I'm gonna let some pissant monster win? Forget _that_. I'll go for the gold some other time. Nighty-night, I'll leave you the fun part." With one last sly smile, she turned and padded around the bulkhead back toward the crew quarters.

Joker reached out a finger toward one of the cards on the bottom row, then stopped a few inches short. He pulled his hand away and stuck it back in his pocket, slouching in his seat and staring moodily at the unfinished edifice.

_Nah, she's just messing with me._


	12. Contact

It was times like these that Kaidan could allow himself to hate the implant.

Curled up in the dimmed med-bay, he could picture it pulsing hotly, frying neurons, spreading blackness. He could fantasize that it was a big and bladed thing, turning slowly on itself and slicing through his brain, growing inexorably until the knives penetrated the back of his throat, speared his eye sockets, cracked his skull open. He'd gotten sick of trying to tell himself he was lucky at times like this years ago. Gratitude he had plenty of, but that was for other moments. Trying to convince himself he was glad to be alive while in this kind of pain brought no comfort, only a sick sense of emptiness that left a lingering aftertaste of resentment.

But the hate was pure, and above all, honest. Like the pain, it passed. It burnt itself out and left him feeling weary but relieved, himself again.

The hiss of the door cycling open penetrated the perfect silence. Footsteps approached, stopped.

"I'm sorry I have to bother you, Lieutenant." Shepard's smooth contralto, even quiet, was a conflicting mix of welcome and hellish.

He managed a wordless sound of acknowledgment. The auras behind his eyelids persisted even as he tried to force his eyes open, squinting into the dim space ahead of him. Shepard was a looming shadow outlined by tracers.

"I'm writing the report for Hackett, and I need the decrypts you were working on. Where did you put them?"

There was a lag of time while his tortured brain processed this request. He knew what she was talking about, but the details kept squirming and fragmenting as he tried to grasp them. Gingerly, he started to pull himself up on his elbows, but a warm hand on his shoulder forced him back down.

"No, don't get up. Just tell me where I can find them."

He relented gratefully, a flutter of nausea running through his stomach.

"Uh... s-server two... They're not..." He struggled to say what he needed using the least words possible. "Garrus an' I-"

"Garrus knows where they are?" she said, cutting him off.

"'es."

"Perfect, that's fine, I'll ask him."

"'m sorry," he mumbled miserably.

"Please don't worry about it," she said softly, her voice warm and sympathetic.

He heard her footsteps move away, her usual stride controlled and stepping lightly, until the door hissed and silence fell. It was really the best thing she could have done for him, to just leave him alone, but part of him wished she could have stayed. To do what, he didn't know... she couldn't make it stop. But the irrationality of the desire didn't matter.

The apology was stupid, a holdover bad habit from his youth. He could hear his father's exasperated voice- _Stop apologizing for things you can't control_.

Except that for a while, he'd convinced himself that he should be able to control everything. It could all be categorized, labeled, and crammed into a proper box. Above all, he thought he could control himself. Somewhere out there was a shining, platonic ideal of mastery that he could achieve if he just worked hard enough. Sometime later he'd come to see the mistake in that notion, but old habits had a tendency to die hard.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been lying there when an absurd thought floated up unbidden through the crushing pain. It was silly, pointless, but now that it had shaken loose from his subconscious, it refused to go away.

Had Shepard ever touched him before?

Outside of blood and guns, noise and horror, that was.  
_  
__Outside of... armor._

This absurd, persistent little question hovered somewhere in the miasma, just out of reach.

_Just beyond control._


	13. Control

"You take us to all the nicest places, Skipper," Ashley said wryly as she dropped into the rear seat of the Mako behind Commander Shepard and Lieutenant Alenko.

"It's because I love," Shepard replied mildly, touching some controls on the Mako's main console before settling back.

Ashley was glad they could at least be inside the temperature-controlled vehicle instead of outside on Presrop's unforgivingly cold surface. Outside the viewport, Klendagon, of which the moon they were perched on was the main satellite, was setting slowly behind the rocky mountain range that encircled the valley. Light reflected off the planet cast a dull, ambient light over the landscape. Within a hundred yards from them a few harsh chemical lamps illuminated the edges of a clutch of prefab buildings that looked like they'd been dropped negligently from orbit and abandoned there.

Inside, a former Alliance soldier, now styling himself as the leader of a biotic cult, was supposedly explaining to his followers why he had to leave, on a promise to Shepard that he would disband his group and surrender to the Alliance. Ashley had no qualms about dispatching criminals, but the thought of having to slaughter a bunch of misguided humans didn't sit right. At least the commander had brought only her and Alenko here.

The chief leaned forward. "Do you trust him, ma'am? You think he'll come out?"

Shepard frowned. "Kyle was a decorated soldier, so he gets his hour. I've read the reports about Torfan... we probably don't even know half of what it was like."

"Post-traumatic stress is one thing, but a cult? Give me a break," Ashley said. "And who'd want to join, anyway? I mean, coming to a moon the middle of nowhere so you can grub around in some prefabs? I don't know how that's supposed to be better than life, I don't know, _anywhere_ else."

There was a moment of silence, then Shepard looked back at her. "You know that look civilians give you when you walk around with a sidearm? They know you probably won't pull it and start randomly plugging people, but just the fact you have it sets you apart, makes you more of a threat than anyone else."

"I guess..." Ashley said skeptically. Weapons had always been present in her life, even if they'd been carefully locked away by her father. She'd spent her adulthood learning everything there was to know about their maintenance and use, so there wasn't any mystique left in them as far as she was concerned.

"It's an undercurrent." Shepard shrugged. "Thing is, you can put the gun away and blend right in whenever you want. The implants don't come out."

Ashley folded her arms. "Yeah, but random people don't automatically know you're biotic."

"Granted," Shepard said. "But once you show a lick of corona, you're armed. And with all the bad press, once they know you're an L2, you're a loaded weapon that's liable to pop a gasket at the drop of a hat and go Nietzschian Übermensch on everyone in the vicinity. Some people never learn to deal with being treated differently all the time... and I think it's a much more subtle effect than people realize."

Alenko snickered richly. "'Go Nietzschian Übermensch on everyone'… oh man, I have to remember that."

"You get the same thing, LT?" Ashley asked him.

He looked pensive. "I guess I'm sort of used to it, but it's there. I think it's more like the moment when someone finds out, they get that funny look on their face, and they step lightly around you for a while. Depends on the person; some are worse than others. And it's usually not because they really think you're going to hurt them, it's just the... otherness."

Ashley suddenly wondered if she'd done the same thing, and was forced to admit she probably hadn't been any different from everyone else. "But that goes away, right, when people get to know you?" she asked.

"Of course, like anything else that sets us apart from normalcy," the lieutenant said with a shrug. "The human race as a whole hasn't even had a whole generation to get a handle on biotics."

"Normalcy... whatever the hell _that_ is," Ashley sniffed. "So what's your deal, Skipper?"

"Pardon?" The commander glanced back.

"Well, LT gets migraines from his implant, right?" the chief said. "I thought all L2s had nasty side effects, and obviously you never caught the crazy..."

Shepard shifted in her seat. "I'm... that's sort of a long story," she said vaguely.

"We seem to have time," Alenko said, curiosity falling off his voice in waves. "I mean, uh, you don't have to, but..."

Ashley smirked knowingly. _He's been saving _that _one up for a while. _"I've already bored you with my life story, ma'am, it's only fair," she said amiably.

The commander laughed lightly, then thumbed the neck seal of her helmet open and pulled it off, putting it down on her lap. For a few seconds she seemed to collect her thoughts. "It goes back to... Well, you asked for it," Shepard said, "I might as well start at the beginning; I have no idea where or how I got my eezo exposure."

"Really?" Alenko sounded genuinely surprised.

"If they knew, my parents never got around to telling me," Shepard said. "I can get into a lot of conjecture as to why: maybe they were trying to protect me from prejudice, or keep me from worrying about getting brain tumors. I can remember visiting the doctor a lot when I was young, but it never struck me as strange - all the colonists were pretty careful about their kids on an alien world. But I guess... I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt and leave it at that. I went through a phase of assuming all sorts of things about their motivations, but in the end I know they loved me, so there's no point in agonizing over something I'll never know."

"When did you notice it? The biotics, I mean?" the lieutenant asked.

"I was pretty young... maybe six or seven? I could never control it, it just happened when I didn't expect it. I tried to tell people about it a few times, but that never went anywhere. I couldn't make it happen on demand, so anyone I told assumed I was imagining things, even my parents. My mother... she was an agri-engineer, there wasn't much room in her world for fairies in the garden or mysterious mind powers. She was pretty focused on growing the colony, always busy with a dozen projects, I doubt she paid much attention to the news about biotics. Too esoteric, I think.

"As I grew up I started to believe I _had_ imagined it. You know how it is when you're a teenager... I sure as hell wasn't looking for a reason to be different from everyone else, and there were far too many new things to worry about."

"Boys?" Ashley inquired with a sly smile.

"Oh yes, definitely them," Shepard answered with a brief grin, then slouched a bit. "So even after... the slaver attack, I still didn't really know. I mean, I never forgot about what happened when I was a kid, but denial was easy and didn't make me stick out. I floated around the foster system for a while, about five months. People line up to adopt babies, but there aren't many who come out of the woodwork for a sullen, traumatized teenager."

"You didn't have any family?" the lieutenant asked.

Shepard absently pushed a stray strand of hair back. "They... were all on Mindoir. The whole lot of us. My mother made a big thing out of it; the whole clan moved to the colony for the bright future of humanity and all that."

"Shit..." Ashley murmured, shifting uncomfortably. The thought of losing her family, her sisters, to violence and terror like that made her itch to call home.

"Anyway... one day I got into a yelling match with someone at the center they were warehousing me at, and something tripped and I flared up right there in front of a half-dozen people. Word got around, and next thing I knew the director had me planted on a chair in his office and was chewing me out for hiding it and posing a danger to the other kids, like I had a contagious disease or something." Shepard frowned at the memory.

"Charming," Alenko muttered.

"A few days later some very suave-looking suits showed up and made me a proposition. They'd take custody of me and make me part of a new training program. Needless to say I was signing the dotted line before they'd gotten halfway through their speech, and of course the director of the foster center was thrilled to be rid of me."

"What year was that?" the lieutenant asked, a pensive look on his face.

"Early '71," Shepard answered. "I was told this was a new, experimental Alliance military training program. And after Mindoir... it was just what I wanted, to never be helpless again. I actually got pretty excited about it, all sorts of visions of being this super-powered commando or something. And it was ideal for them, I fit their most important criteria to a T; completely expendable."

The set of Alenko's jaw quite clearly said he didn't approve of that idea at all.

"No family to start hiring lawyers, huh?" Williams said.

Shepard ran her fingers idly over the helmet in her lap, tracing the scoring left on the brow plate from the Luna mission. "Yeah. I didn't care at the time though, it was better than where I was. So I went to their facility for surgery, they stuck their piece of metal in my brain, and once they were satisfied I could still walk straight, they shipped me off to their secret base. To this day I haven't the faintest idea where it is, only that it took five days to get there."

"The L3 was out by then," Alenko mused.

"It was, within a few months," the commander said. "Conatix was dead, and this new research group got their hands on the L2 technology, and started tinkering with it. Someone in the upper echelons of the Alliance wasn't happy with the power cut the L3s took. So this group was planning to succeed where Conatix failed; preserve the upper end of L2 power levels while lowering the failure rate. So what I have is technically an L2; they took the same architecture and fiddled with the proverbial dials, then stuck it in a bunch of us to see what would happen. But... it wasn't just that they were testing their implants. The biotics course was folded into military-style training... they wanted to see if they could create a team of biotic commandos for special missions."

"That sounds really... I dunno, like smarmy action vid stuff," Ashley said.

Shepard chuckled. "In retrospect, it basically was. Very top-secret, black-budget. I doubt very many people know about it even today."

"Does that mean you have to kill us after finish the story?" Alenko asked with thin humor.

"Heh. They didn't earn my silence," Shepard replied grimly. "There were nineteen of us, anywhere between fifteen and eighteen years old."

"They were training people that young for military applications?" the lieutenant interjected, a note of incredulity in his voice. "That... can't be legal..."

The commander sighed. "Probably not. But they didn't care, we all came from between the cracks of society; orphans, runaways... at least one was pulled out of juvenile prison. I heard a rumor they even went so far as to pay off some parents."

Ashley made a face. "Some new family to go into..."

"They weren't so bad," Shepard said, leaning her head against the high-backed Mako seat. "Mostly a bunch of scared, lonely kids who suddenly found out they were special. It was a weird atmosphere, but we kind of banded together out of necessity. There was an asari there named Ana'ria, she was the main teacher. She was... cold. It was like she didn't actually want to be there, which made us wonder if she'd been kidnapped or something. More likely she was being well paid, but still had to deal with what for her must have been like being in a cage with a bunch of hooting monkeys."

Ashley snickered. "Monkeys with magic powers... next on Wild Kingdom."

Shepard glanced at her with a mild smile before continuing. "I drove her absolutely nuts. You want to know what my 'deal' was? Well, it's... control. I don't know if it's a fault with the implant, or just my own bad habits and misfired training, but I can't really pull my punch. Forget about picking up objects at a distance; I can break them really well - and everything else in the vicinity. Power I have, but nowhere near the control Liara has, or you, Lieutenant."

He glanced at Shepard, brow creased in thought.

"Is that really a bad thing?" Ashley put in. "I mean, no headaches, right?"

"I get headaches, especially when I overdo it. They aren't migraines, though," the commander replied. "But... I would trade migraines for control any day of the week. It's limiting. I get tired fast if I use my abilities too much, because I can't properly modulate how much energy I put into them, and so it's hard on my metabolism. It took me a while to learn how to eat right so I didn't get sick all the time. And, well, there's plenty of times when more control would have given me a tactical option I didn't otherwise have. I mean, if I'd been better... maybe... I could have saved Toombs."

"I was there, and all my control didn't achieve much," Alenko said, staring down at the dashboard.

Shepard frowned, looking over at him. "That wasn't a criticism of you, Lieutenant. We did what we could. Toombs... made his choice."

Alenko shifted in his seat, expression distant. Ashley had read the mission report and knew about what had happened, but didn't like to think about it. She'd always been taught that suicide was deeply wrong, no matter the circumstances. Still, mission reports were so dry and formal, they always made her wonder what _really_ happened down in the trenches.

Shepard forged ahead. "Anyway, eventually Ana'ria refused to deal with me anymore, claiming I never listened and that I was destined to fail. I _did_ listen, I just never got the hang of what she was telling me. But I did well with the rest of my training, so I ended up getting most of my instruction from the other teacher they'd managed to scare up. He was human... an L1. Not very strong, but, well, he'd been where we were. A bunch of kids in a base in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by suits and scientists and drill sergeants... He was the one who could actually relate to us, our frustrations and failures... He had a real gift for offering advice on how to overcome a block or get through the scary parts."

"Scary...?" Ashley asked.

"After you break your own bones a few times trying to manipulate gravity, you don't tend to want to try it again," Shepard said.

"Oh... yeah, I can see that." Ashley glanced at Alenko, who gave a slight knowing nod.

"Eric's the reason I know more about the program as a whole than I should," Shepard said distantly. "He told me bits and pieces of the truth when he could, even though he really wasn't supposed to."

"Eric, huh? How informal," Ashley teased.

Shepard raised an eyebrow in her direction. "You have a one-track mind, Chief. He wasn't military anymore, so he preferred being called by his first name. I think he did it on purpose to separate himself from the overseers. It worked, too; we loved him. He... didn't treat my control issue like a flaw the way Ana'ria did. He just suggested I work with it, change my fighting style. He put the shotgun in my hands and told me that if I was going to knock everyone down, I may as well get up close enough to take advantage of it."

The commander exhaled, then continued. "One day this guy named Grant, nice kid, quiet, he just didn't show up one morning. They told us he'd flunked the program and was asked to leave. Grant never scored very high in the training, so we bought their story. Then a month later someone else 'went home', then another month after that another kid went on sudden medical leave. Of course we all got suspicious, told each other some pretty wild stories after lights-out, but we had no idea of the truth."

Shepard's voice dropped a bit. "After about thirteen months, those of us who were left were getting pretty good, and mostly stopped hurting ourselves. We... were down to nine, and all convinced we were the cream of the crop, the ones that survived the selection process. And then... we found out first-hand what was going wrong with the others. There were two girls there, twins, always sticking together. Exposed together, implanted together, everything. They... lost it together. It seemed very sudden, but maybe we were all too self-absorbed to notice warning signs.

"One night they broke into the weapons locker and just..." Shepard rubbed a hand over her face. "I wasn't... I was in my room, I didn't see it happen. As soon as the trouble started the overseers auto-locked our doors. But I saw the damage afterwards- two angry L2-level biotics and a lot of guns, they trashed the place pretty badly, killed twelve people. Eric told me afterwards they were ranting about how the scientists were going to kill us, how we'd been lied to all along, that we were going to be sent on a suicide mission to nuke the turian capital, crap like that."

"What happened to them?" Alenko asked.

"Snipers," Shepard stated bluntly.

After a moment of silence, she continued. "Training stopped after that. I heard some scuttlebutt that they considered liquidating the lot of us, but I think someone upstairs decided the Alliance had sunk so much money into the project they wanted to get some kind of return on it. We were split up, and I was practically dropped off on the doorstep of the garrison on Terra Nova in a basket with a note on it saying 'please recruit me'."

Despite everything, Ashley snickered, picturing an adult Shepard in full armor sitting in a basket, arms crossed and legs dangling over the side.

"How old were you?" Alenko asked.

"Almost eighteen," Shepard replied. "They didn't actually recruit me for a year, just gave me crappy jobs around the base. I'm pretty sure they were keeping tabs on me to see if I'd become another L2 statistic. I... didn't have anywhere else to go, so I made do and just tried to learn how to live like a normal person. I was pretty bad at it though, so I was glad when they finally let me formally enlist."

"After all that, boot camp must've been a joke," Ashley said.

"Sort of." Shepard folded her arms. "Part of where I am today is because I got frustrated with the others in my recruit group. They all seemed so lost, so I started telling them what to do, and most of them listened. It was my first concrete lesson in how much easier it is to take orders than give them... the people in my unit just started treating me like I was in charge, until someone promoted me, than I really was. But I don't have any illusions about where this all led me. I'm... a weapon, a blunt instrument, not really good at much else."

Alenko frowned. "I don't know if I agree with that assessment."

Shepard shot him a wan smile. "I've had years to think about it, and I've come to the conclusion that there seems to be a place for me, so I'll keep doing what I'm best at. And sometimes I can save lives rather than take them." She looked significantly out the viewport toward the prefab buildings squatting in the rocky valley.

"I remember thinking how professional Nihlus seemed when we dropped onto Eden Prime," the commander continued pensively. "What did he say? 'I move faster on my own'. The very picture of the suave, competent lone wolf, out protecting the galaxy by any means necessary."

"'Till he caught one to the back of the head..." Ashley smirked.

Shepard let out a low chuckle. "Yeah. Maybe the lone wolf thing worked for him, but it doesn't for me. That's the value of the team... it makes me far greater than I could ever be alone. Alone, I couldn't have done a fraction of the things we've done together. The whole Spectre thing, they could have just tacked it onto the _Normandy_ as a whole."

"Kind of makes you wonder where Saren lost his way, doesn't it?" Alenko mused.

Ashley snorted. "Saren's a psychopath."

The lieutenant shrugged. "Maybe now, but he probably wasn't always. I mean, they made him a Spectre for a reason, right? He was supposed to have been their very best. What's changed so that now he's trying to kill everyone?"

Commander Shepard remained silent, staring off into the distance of the alien world.

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" Ashley quoted, leaning back comfortably in the bucket seat. "Eh, Saren just didn't have enough friends to keep him from wandering off into the dark."


	14. Warrior

Standing in the _Normandy_'s decontamination airlock, Kaidan wearily cycled his visor closed, trying to make himself breathe through his mouth now that he was locked into his helmet with the Thorian's bilious reek. Head aching, he closed his eyes and concentrated on not toppling over out of sheer exhaustion as the bright white beams traveled slowly over the team of four, microwaving away the worst of the mission's contaminants on its maximum setting.

Everything had been going fine. Wrex, Garrus, Shepard and himself had made short work of the geth in the ExoGeni building. In the tight corridors, the geth couldn't bring any numbers to bear on their small team, and the constant barrage of biotics and ECM grenades kept the synthetics disorganized and unable to entrench themselves. Shepard's team succeeded in killing a large number of them, and even destroyed their drop-ship.

But then it had all gone to hell. Maybe it was the shambling monstrosities whose appearance was only a hollow mockery of humanity, or the horror of the dead-eyed colonists of Zhu's Hope turning on them, or even the mild nerve gas the team loaded into their grenades to try to spare the colonists' lives, but by the time the team was descending the musty, disused staircase below the grounded freighter, Kaidan knew he was in trouble.

The flare of tracers started in at the edges of his vision, and it didn't take long for the pain to follow. Silently cursing the timing, he keyed his hardsuit's medical system to dose him with as much painkiller as he dared under the circumstances. He couldn't risk using the really effective stuff, as it left him far too tired and stoned to operate in the field. As to whether the lesser painkiller would work at all was always a crap-shoot, but he prayed it would at least take the edge off.

Because there was no fall-back. Left to guard the colony and weed out the last of the geth, Williams, Liara and Tali had been forced to retreat to the _Normandy_ in order to avoid having to gun down the mind-controlled colonists. Running low on the nerve agent, Shepard and her small team could only move forward into the heart of the beast. Kaidan had hoped that whatever this Thorian was, it could be dispatched quickly, but of course the universe had no interest in giving him the easy way out.

And then they were in the middle of a horror vid, fighting a grueling battle for every foot they slogged forward through the murky ruin and oppressively hot, damp air. Already weary from the extended fight against the geth, the constant onslaught of shambling plant-men quickly started to drain his reserves of energy. They were relentless and frighteningly resilient, no more perturbed by a carefully aimed round to the head than a light slap, and would only deign to fall over and die when completely shredded by gunfire. And as if that wasn't enough, when they got close enough they literally vomited a stream of vile, stinking slime.

And the asari... thing. At first he'd assumed she was another thrall like the colonists, too far gone to be reachable by the nerve agent. But after they gunned her down the first time and the green flesh sloughed off the boneless face, it was clear that whatever she... it... was had never been flesh and blood. It pummeled Shepard's team with biotics, wrenching the local gravitational field into shearing warps, and at least once almost sending Garrus careening over the side of the multi-level structure. Worse yet, the Thorian seemed to have a backup supply of these thralls, a new one appearing seemingly as soon as the last was killed.

Somewhere in the mess Kaidan gave up on thinking and let his training and instinct take over, something he never really liked having to do under any circumstance. He turned down the audio pickups in his helmet to try and deaden the worst of the constant racket of gunfire, but every word that cracked over the comm system still drove knives into his brain. He considered sealing his visor as well, but he detested trying to fight with its limited field of view, especially in a close-range conflict, so he forced himself to tolerate the stink despite his stomach's protests. He downed part of his supply of energy drink at every opportunity, forcing every scrap of strength he could out of his battered nerves to keep pushing the things away so Garrus and Wrex could shred them with their assault rifles.

Things started to go a bit better when Shepard adjusted her tactics, ordering them to hang back and prioritize getting the thrall-monsters off their feet by any means possible. They were slow to get back up and made easier targets when forced to contend with a doorway or hall full of their fallen, struggling comrades. The team made slow but steady progress, methodically destroying the Thorian's support structures as they went.

But then, deep in the structure in a narrow stairwell, they were suddenly surrounded by the plant zombies. Already running on empty, Kaidan lost track of things in the mayhem, reduced to firing at any target he could. When his pistol overheated, he resorted to punching the leering green faces and stomping viciously on their mushy heads as they writhed on the ground. The local gravitational field seesawed madly as dark energy fields competed for control; the asari-shaped thrall pummeled them, finally slamming him into the back wall so hard it made stars dance in his vision and blackness surged up to try and claim him.

Knocked off his feet, Kaidan clung desperately to the tattered edges of consciousness as disjointed images danced in front of him. He rolled over and tried doggedly to plant one foot and push himself up, but his inner ear got into a violent disagreement with his eyes about where the horizon line actually was and his long-suffering stomach finally revolted, leaving him back on hands and knees retching into the muck. Mercifully there wasn't much left in his stomach at that point, so all he got out of the exercise was a vile taste in his mouth and a distant sense of embarrassment and frustration.

As he gathered himself for another attempt at standing, an arm circled his torso suddenly and hauled him bodily to his feet. He clenched his teeth against another heave, reaching out to steady himself against the wall. Noticing that the battle seemed to have stopped for the moment, he looked up to see Shepard step around him, catching his eye.

"On your feet marine, we're almost through," she said simply, a hint of sympathy in her blood-shot eyes. She then turned and started trying to help Wrex stand, which was rather like arguing with a stubborn mule. Garrus was close by, on one knee among the piled corpses, armored shoulders heaving with his labored, exhausted breathing. Kaidan was dimly grateful that despite the migraine, he wasn't the only one who'd been pushed to the limits by this fight.

And it was true, the end came soon enough after. The last of the Thorian's support nodes was destroyed and the monster plunged into the depths of the huge prothean tower. Kaidan negotiated the aftermath in a bit of a daze, only vaguely aware of the real, flesh-and-blood asari they found at the top of the structure, the trip back down, or later, the attentions of the grateful colonists. It was all just time that bled away until they could slink back to the _Normandy,_ where Kaidan had never been so happy to hear the VI's stilted voice announce the decontamination procedure.

When the inner airlock door finally cycled open, Shepard exited and turned left into the cockpit, presumably to speak to Joker. Kaidan followed Garrus and Wrex through the command deck and down the stairs to the crew level. The lieutenant let the two of them go on ahead as he stopped outside the empty mess hall to try and collect himself.

After a minute, Shepard came down the stairs herself, looking shockingly worse for wear. One arm was crossed over her ribs, and she seemed to be concentrating on the stairs, taking them one at a time. Her armor was dented, battered and discolored, and her nose was bleeding again. She stopped at the bottom of the staircase and glanced around. As Kaidan opened his mouth to ask if she was all right, Shepard's gaze became slightly unfocused and she swayed visibly. Without thinking he took two quick steps forward and slipped an arm under her shoulder.

"Commander... please, you should go to the med-bay..." he said worriedly.

"Later," she grated, and started moving toward the door to her quarters.

Seeing she was determined on this course despite everything, Kaidan went along, half-supporting her. The door's lock system recognized her comm signal and obligingly unlatched and slid open. Shepard tottered over to her desk and slid into the chair, letting out a long, trembling breath. Kaidan hovered uncertainly close behind her as she disengaged the neck seal on her helmet and negligently pushed it off, letting it skip off the table edge and thud to the floor. It rolled over once and then stopped, gaping vacantly at him. She put her head in her hands, leaning heavily on the desk.

"Shepard, you... " he started, realizing belatedly that he'd neglected her title. _That asari..._

"Kaidan..." she murmured wearily.

Hearing his given name come out of her mouth made his exhausted and aching brain freeze up. Maybe it was a mercy, as he had teetered precipitously on the brink of doing something, saying something that at best would have been a huge embarrassment, at worst damaged his standing on this mission, possibly even his career.

"Please... I'll be okay. I need you to just leave me alone right now," she said, her voice muffled by her hands. A drop of blood landed on the desktop with a soft tap.

"Um... all right," he managed, feeling the internal dam creak ominously. He forced himself bodily to turn away and walk out of the room. _What did that asari do to her?_

On heavy feet he made his way around the bulkhead to elevator, trying to wade through the murk of pain-soaked memory and piece together the conversation that had passed between Shepard and the asari commando, Shiala, that had been a prisoner of the Thorian. Something about prothean ancestral memory, about Saren and the beacon. He was still sorting it out in his head when he got down to his locker and absent-mindedly powered down his armor, loosening the whole hardsuit around him as the main seals disengaged and the hardening system relaxed. Somewhere behind the haze in his head, he could faintly sense the kinetic shield dissipate as the main power plant shut down.

He robotically unclipped the secondary catches and pulled the whole top part off over his head, including the thin temperature-control layer. Even as he did so, he noticed something didn't feel right. Closer inspection revealed something wrong with the woven undersuit. The material had become brittle in large patches, the composites denatured by the plant zombies' corrosive gunk. This wasn't something that could be patched or replaced, and he realized with disgust that the whole suit was probably a write-off.

Kaidan was dreaming up a wide range of exotic swear-words when Wrex abruptly stumped up beside him and jammed his assault rifle into his locker. Instead of leaving again as he usually did, the scarred krogan turned toward the lieutenant.

"Well Alenko, maybe there's hope for you yet," Wrex rumbled.

_Oh here we go. _ "Hope for me," Kaidan repeated in a flat voice, irritably tossing the damaged armor into his locker.

Wrex stepped closer, crowding the human, and cocked his massive head to one side to fix Kaidan with one crimson eye. The lieutenant dimly recalled Garrus explaining that a krogan's close-range binocular vision was terrible, and so they tended to resort to one eye or the other when they really wanted to look at someone. The turian even postulated that there was some kind of cultural significance to which eye they chose, but wasn't sure what it was. Despite feeling more than a little exposed, Kaidan was in far too foul a mood to give an inch to the looming mercenary, so he just stood his ground and glowered back at the krogan.

"Loo-tenant. What does that even mean? Where I come from, it's warriors, warlord." Wrex emphasized the words with one hand then the other. "Simple! Don't know why you humans have to complicate war so much." He stabbed Kaidan's bare chest with a thick finger.

"I know my place," Kaidan snapped. He had no interest in trying to justify chain of command to the recalcitrant krogan, or, at that moment, to himself.

"A warrior fights with everything, every battle, no hesitation. Shepard knows that, Williams too," Wrex said bluntly.

Kaidan balled his fists. "If you think I'd hold back for an instant if it meant saving-" he grated, catching himself on the brink of idiotically blurting out Shepard's name. Drawing a breath, he finished evenly, "If it meant winning a battle..."

Wrex scrutinized him for a minute. "Used to think you might," he said finally, "but maybe not. What's the human saying?" A contemplative look crossed the krogan's brutish features. "Still waters run deep... Yeah, I always liked that one. Your species makes an awful lot of noise, but occasionally one of you comes up with something good." He leaned closer, broad face inches from Kaidan's, scaly mouth curling at the corners. "I'd like to go a round with you one day, Alenko. It'd be fun. I bet you'd fight smart, fight dirty, make me have to think to beat you."

Kaidan just stared at him. After a few seconds, Wrex stepped back and said something in a guttural rumble that must have been his native language. Then, clearly, "We earned our rest tonight."

With that, the mercenary turned and lumbered away, leaving Kaidan to wonder if he'd just been insulted, threatened, or given some kind of impenetrably backhanded compliment. He scowled after Wrex as the krogan disappeared behind the supply crates, then turned back to his locker and continued changing.

It wasn't that he hated Wrex, it was just that he had no reason to like the krogan. From the beginning he'd questioned the wisdom of having someone so outwardly mercenary on board. But through some obscure logic known only to herself, Shepard had not only added him to her unconventional team, but brought him along on most missions. There was no denying the krogan's raw power on the battlefield; he was nearly a force unto himself. And despite the blatant contempt for authority he displayed on a regular basis, he hadn't yet disobeyed Shepard's orders in the field.

But Kaidan didn't trust him. And yet...

On the surface, there was little to recommend the surly krogan. Kaidan wanted nothing of the nihilism that seemed to dominate Wrex's personality, but deep down, it was all too easy to envy the krogan's obvious prowess, easy confidence and uncomplicated selfishness.

_Wrex wouldn't follow inconvenient rules._

The headache was finally beginning to ease off, slowly filling his mind with the disjointed sense of euphoria that always came with the release from pain. Concern for Shepard still gnawed at him, but he tried to put that and everything else out of his mind. Despite being sorely tried, everyone had come back in one piece, and the colony had been saved. He could wait for the debriefing to learn more about this so-called Cipher they'd all nearly died for... all he really wanted at this point was a long shower and sleep.

A lot of sleep.


	15. Tact

Kaidan was just digging into a late supper in the _Normandy_'s mess hall when Chief Williams came around the bulkhead from the cargo elevator and joined him.

"What's for dinner, Killer?" she asked as she pressed buttons on the menu system.

He looked up at her sharply. "Don't. Just don't, okay?" he said curtly.

"Yeah alright, fine," she said in an overly conciliatory tone. "So what started all of that anyway?"

"You should stop hanging out with Joker so much, you're absorbing all of his tact," he said with thin sarcasm.

"Oh, I can be outspoken without any help from _him_," she smirked, collecting her tray and sitting opposite him.

"It's really not a big deal," he said evenly.

She raised her eyebrows innocently. "So why not satisfy my curiosity?"

Kaidan rolled his eyes. The fact was, whatever she was imagining was probably worse than the truth. So he took a deep breath and began.

"It started because Marcus... the dark haired one... is one of those frat-boy rejects who thinks the rules are for everyone else. He had an officer in his previous posting on the soft side who tended to let things slide. When Marcus got to the _New Dehli_, he thought he could keep going like he always had." The lieutenant frowned. "I don't _like_ writing people up, I don't look for reasons to do it."

"How refreshing," she quipped.

Kaidan cocked an eyebrow in her direction before continuing. "Anyway, Marcus finally pushed it far enough that I wrote him up for insubordination and dereliction of duty."

"He didn't like that much, I take it?"

"He got demoted," Kaidan said bluntly. "It wasn't just because of me though; apparently he had a whole laundry list of warnings at that point."

"But he blamed you for it," Ashley guessed, pointing her fork at him.

Kaidan shrugged. "I was the closest and most convenient target. But initially there really wasn't much he could do except badmouth me to his cronies, which was more or less easy to ignore."

"Until something changed?"

"I told someone... something in confidence, but apparently I misplaced my trust. Marcus got a hold of it and decided it would be fun to use against me. It wasn't the kind of thing he could use to ruin my career or anything, but..." He tried to collect his thoughts, but then pushed ahead in hopes of forestalling the obvious question. "There was someone I... liked, someone I was thinking of asking out. Marcus basically threatened to tell her, and it's the kind of story that would have started things off on the wrong foot, you know?"

Ashley folded her arms. "Blackmail, huh? I hope you sorted him good."

"I... No." He felt the irritation in his voice. "What was I going to do? It was a personal issue, it's not like I could get the brass involved. I wasn't interested in drama, so I just let it go. There was only a month left in the tour at that point, anyway. Maybe I could have handled it differently in retrospect, but it's not like I had a big emotional investment or anything..."

Ashley's expression clearly said what she thought of it all. "So I bet watching him hang himself in Chora's Den was all the more satisfying."

"Things came around, yeah. But the fact is, Marcus has been digging his own grave for years, he really didn't need much help from me to end up on the garbage dump of life."

"True, but it's not as satisfying as knocking his teeth in personally," she smirked.

Kaidan just shrugged again. _Payback never works that simply._

"I dated a guy once who dumped me because of my name," Ashley said, pushing her food around her plate.

He frowned. "What's... wrong with your name?"

She leveled a narrow stare at him. "Williams? Shanxi? Ring any bells?"

"General Williams?" he ventured.

"My grandfather."

Kaidan blinked. This revelation cast an entirely new light on the chief's service record, namely why despite her excellent scores, she'd still been consigned to a planet-side garrison. Kaidan knew his history, but wasn't comfortable with the wholesale condemnation of the general's actions. Military saber-rattling never seemed to line up with little niggling issues like civilian lives.

"A guy dumped you... because of your grandfather?" he asked, incredulous.

"Yeah well, Mister Career-Oriented didn't want to risk hurting his future by being associated with a Williams," she said with a bitter twist of her mouth.

He sighed. "Be nice to think we'd gotten over the whole 'judging people by the actions of their family' thing by now, but I guess not. If you ask me, someone that shallow isn't worth the time of day."

"So was she cute?" Ashley asked suddenly.

"Huh?"

"The girl you liked."

"Uh... yeah, she was an engineer, really smart, funny," he said vaguely, somewhat surprised at how dim the memories had become. He sort of suspected they'd been crowded out of that particular section of his head-space lately by something, or more precisely someone, else.

"Career-boy was okay," Ashley said thoughtfully. "Fun to take on dates, but I guess I'm lucky he wasn't too much more than that."

"Maybe his ego couldn't handle being with a woman who could kick his ass," Kaidan offered amiably.

"I so could have, too," she mused. "Oh well, almost but not quite, huh?"

It seemed to Kaidan that he could summarize his love life in those words. He had no great regrets to speak of, but there was always something that didn't quite work out. Over time, the naive, romantic ideas of his youth had been eroded by the realities of military life, never being in one place long enough to really settle. He sometimes wondered if it wouldn't be so much easier to live like some soldiers did, taking physical pleasures where they could find them and not spending too much energy worrying about commitment. But a lot of thought and a couple of abortive attempts had only served to reinforce his belief that for better or for worse, he wasn't wired to find happiness that way.

All of this abruptly sharpened his desire to tell Shepard the truth about Vyrnnus, a desire that had been too easily left by the wayside in the near-constant assault of new, more pressing challenges. As he and Ashley fell back to eating, Kaidan silently promised himself that he would not allow the turian's lingering ghost to interfere in any way with...

_Interfere __with what, exactly?_ Kaidan sighed inwardly, frustrated at himself. For all the hard-won pragmatism of his years, the naive voice lingered at the foundations of his mind like a neglected vine stubbornly refusing to die off. Easy to ignore most of time, but sometimes still capable of remarkable and subtle strength, patiently worming past the walls into places he didn't expect.

* * *

A day later, chance worked unexpectedly in his favor. He had just finished doing some much-needed repair work on his pistol down in the empty cargo bay when he decided to try and re-create the biotic stasis effect he'd stumbled upon during the Luna mission.

It all started innocently enough when he picked up a plastic-handled brush from among the tools laid out on the table, tossing it into the air and then trying to lock it in place like he had the drone. But getting the gravitational field to exert itself evenly down to one point was harder than he expected, and he was soon walking all over the back of the cargo bay after the escaped brush to doggedly try again.

After an hour he'd started to get the hang of it, finding he needed to put more strength into it to make it stick. When the technique worked, he could actually reach out and grasp the brush in mid-air, and it wouldn't move unless he forced the field to change or let it run out.

He missed an attempt, sending the brush skittering off toward the worktable at the side of the cargo bay. As he turned to chase after it, he realized Shepard was standing near the table, watching him curiously.

"Practicing?" she asked as he approached.

"Uh, yeah," Kaidan said. "Trying something new. It's hard to get it consistently, though." He walked over to the table and somewhat self-consciously picked the stray brush off the floor.

As he stood up, he startled at the static shock that suddenly snapped at his elbow, recoiling out of reflex. He looked over to see Shepard pulling back an outstretched finger, her other hand resting on the metal worktable. She laughed, a cheerfully uncomplicated sound that Kaidan quickly decided he didn't hear enough of.

"Hey..." he protested mildly, rubbing his maligned elbow. He'd built up quite a charge in the last hour, and the resulting shock had been strong.

"Maybe that's the real reason everyone's so jumpy around biotics," she snickered mischievously. "That's a neat trick you've got there."

"When it works, yeah."

"My trainer could do something similar to that. He wasn't very strong, but he knew a lot of interesting little techniques."

Curiosity tugged insistently at him, a holdover from her story. "I got the impression from the way you talked about him that he was... ah, well more than just a teacher," he said carefully.

She regarded him speculatively for a few seconds, long enough that he was about to apologize for prying when she spoke.

"Eric was the first person to honestly care about me after I lost everyone else. Maybe the first person I _let_ care about me, who knows. But he took an awful risk telling me the things he did, about the program... And a long time later, yeah it made me wonder what he really felt. But... he was a little old for me, and I was, in the grand tradition of teenagers everywhere, completely oblivious."

Kaidan laughed lightly, nodding in understanding. "Do you know what happened to him?"

"No," she said, a trace of sadness in her voice. "When the program split up, everybody was shipped to different places, and I suspect a lot of records were sealed or destroyed. I don't know where he ended up... but he was being well paid, so hopefully he's living off a fat pension somewhere nice."

Kaidan offered a small smile. "Watching news vids about his student becoming the first human Spectre?"

She chuckled, waving a dismissive hand. "Hah, if he even remembers me. Anyway, I should let you get back to your exercise."

_Yeah, fat chance he doesn't remember you. _ "I was just going to take a break," he said hurriedly. "And if I abuse this too much, Ash is going to go after my fingers with a hammer." He turned the brush over in his hands before putting it back among the other tools.

"Something on your mind?" Shepard asked.

He stopped, somewhat startled to be so quickly put on the spot. He was getting used to how easily Shepard seemed to penetrate right to the heart of things, but it still caught him off guard sometimes, especially when he found himself in her sights. Her obvious willingness to listen helped him push through the last hesitation, and he decided to make the most of the opportunity.

It was easy enough to express to her his frustration with the Council's apparent inability to see the danger Saren posed. It had been bothering him for some time, but it wasn't the kind of thing he could really bring up in a formal setting without stepping on some toes. Questioning authority wasn't something he did lightly anyway, and certainly not in front of subordinates and team members.

They discussed the subject for a few minutes before she unexpectedly opened the door, bringing up his experience at BAaT and asking about how it affected his view of turians. Determined not to let the chance pass again, Kaidan explained everything.

"I killed him, Shepard... Snapped his neck." A cold sweat prickled down his back. The admission came easier than he'd expected, but despite that, part of him still tensely anticipated the worst: any shred of disapproval from the commander. "Maybe they could have saved him if they'd gotten him to an infirmary in time, but they didn't."

"Was Rahna all right?" Shepard asked instead, her voice quiet.

"Uh... yeah. We... stopped talking after that."

"I don't understand."

"Rahna had a gentle heart," Kaidan explained, looking away. "She was terrified of Vyrnnus. And after what I did... she was terrified of me." Even after all these years, there was a bit of sting left in the memory, worse than that of the turian's death itself.

There was a moment of silence. "So that's why you're so self-controlled," she said finally.

He spread his hands. "I'm no more disciplined than any other biotic. This is all ancient history, I'm over it."

She cocked her head to one side, scrutinizing him. "You agonize about doing the right thing, you never let yourself lose control. All because Rahna spurned you after Vyrnnus died."

"That's..." He stopped, swallowed. "All right, maybe you're right," he conceded. "But you don't have to worry about me; fully functional human being here. I won't be a burden on you. Or the crew," he added hastily.

"It would be a little hypocritical of me to judge you otherwise, don't you think?" she said seriously. "Not very many people would take what Vyrnnus did to you and the others as... humanizing. That says a lot about you."

He experienced a palpable sensation of weight easing off his mind, enjoying it for a few seconds and collecting himself. "I have a few scrapes and dents, but I like to think they give me character," he said finally with a wry smile.

Shepard chuckled. "That's a good way to look at it," she said in a knowing tone.

"You... uh... make a habit of getting this close to your crew?" Dread clamped around Kaidan's gut even as he spoke, but then he'd already said it and it was too late to backpedal. Something in his head reasoned that an outright, clear rejection would be easier to deal with than the constant, losing battle against wishful thinking. But something else in him didn't want to hear a rejection no matter what.

"No," she said simply, regarding him frankly.

The single word made Kaidan's heart skitter as the fear evaporated into a rush of heat that bloomed in his chest. He groped for something to say, grateful that the dim cargo bay lighting wouldn't show too much of the blush creeping quickly up his face.

She frowned uncertainly. "Look, if I read something wrong..."

"No!" Kaidan said quickly, trying to shake off the shock. "No, you... you didn't. Not at all." He let out a rueful laugh. "You... saw right through me a moment ago, so I thought, y'know..." he trailed off.

"There are things I don't like to make assumptions about," she said.

He nodded. For once the silence that stretched out wasn't uncomfortable, as he and Shepard both seemed to adjust to this new revelation. Kaidan tried to marshal his thoughts, but they kept jumping around like a frog on a hot-plate.

"I... uh, don't make a habit of complicating chain of command," he ventured finally, "but... when this is over..."

There was something different about the smile Shepard gave him then, somehow less guarded than any other expression he'd ever seen on her face. It was a welcome change from recent days- even after recovering from the Feros mission, she'd seemed withdrawn, tired.

"Anyway, I'm keeping you from your duties," he said hesitantly, caught between the twin impulses of not wanting her to leave and needing some time to collect himself.

She rolled her eyes slightly. "It's true, reports wait for no man. Or woman, or Spectre. We'll talk later, Kaidan."

"I'd like that," he said sincerely, returning her smile as she turned to go. He still loved hearing her say his name.

_When this is over._ Since the whole Spectre affair had started, he's been so focused on adapting to these new challenges and doing his job that he hadn't even stopped to consider it ending, or what it would mean when it did.

Then again, maybe it was because before, he didn't really have anything exciting to look forward to.


	16. LPUPSI

It started innocently enough. The plan formed neatly in Joker's mind as he maneuvered the _Normandy_ into dock at the Citadel, Shepard standing over his shoulder. By the time the docking clamps reverberated sonorously through the outer hull, he'd already laid the foundations. Tactically, there was no point in pussy-footing around the commander, so he went for the direct approach. To his mild surprise, it worked.

Alenko was easy to hook. He'd been hesitant at first, but the merest hint that Shepard might possibly be in the same vicinity made the man's reservations evaporate like magic. Still, Joker resisted the urge to be snarky about it. As far as he was concerned, he was engaging in a mutually beneficial exchange of services with the lieutenant; maintaining the chaste pretense that this was merely going out for a drink with co-workers after a long cruise.

Joker was somewhat distressed at how nervous he got about addressing the keystone of the plan; asking Ashley to come. But he was also firmly of the opinion that the gods of this world, such as they were, helped those that helped themselves, so he went stoically into the lion's den and managed to achieve his goal without making too much of an ass of himself.

And so several hours later they gathered at Flux, drifting in from the upper Wards like so many stray leaves. The various tensions were a little odd at first, but the application of a couple of drinks and good humor smoothed things out and soon Joker was thoroughly enjoying himself.

When it came time for the third round, Alenko held up a hand. "Not right now," he demurred.

"Wimping out on us already?" Joker asked.

"Don't be an ass, Joker," Shepard said mildly.

He looked at her with an innocent expression. "C'mon, Commander, it's my best feature. If you take that away from me, what have I got left?"

"I'm sure you can find something useful to do with those light fingers of yours," Ashley answered in a mysterious tone.

"Knitting?" the lieutenant suggested. "I'll have another one later. I don't exactly go out of my way for new opportunities to give myself a headache."

_Or to make an idiot of yourself in front of Shepard, I'll bet._ "Well then, I'll just have to take this one for you," the pilot offered.

"You brave soul," the chief said theatrically.

Joker buffed his fingernails on his shirt. "I like my medals in gold."

"I think I'll wait a while before throwing myself in front of explosives again," the chief said thoughtfully. "They seem to disagree with my complexion."

"Yeah, I just hate that," Joker said sarcastically. "So what disagreed with you, Commander?" he asked, pointing at her scarred forearm.

"Love bites from a thresher maw," Shepard replied evenly.

"How rude..." Joker said vaguely, fully aware he'd happily marched straight into a potential minefield.

"Tell me about it, the thing didn't even buy me dinner first," the commander quipped. "I fed it a bunch of incendiaries, and it never called back. I guess it was just a jerk."

Williams leaned forward, eyes wide. "You killed a thresher... on foot?"

Shepard looked at her. "No, my squad killed a thresher on foot," the commander corrected. "I... just got the last shot in. You know, that scary reputation I'm supposed to have probably stems entirely from the fact that by the time the reserve unit showed up, I was so delirious from shock and blood loss that I actually fired on them a couple of times. The brass tried to give me a medal for it all, bunch of flaming idiots."

There was an uncomfortable pause, then Shepard stood up abruptly. "C'mon Williams, let's go upstairs and lose some credits," she stated with a tight smile.

The chief grinned. "That's above my pay grade, Skipper, but I'll point and laugh when _you_ lose some."

Shepard waved the notion away. "Pay, schmay. I can fix that, let's go."

Joker watched them head toward the stairs to the upper level where the Quasar machines waited. "Geez, if I knew getting a raise was _that_ easy..." he muttered, then looked back across the table to see Alenko fixing him with a slightly narrow-eyed stare.

"Don't look at me like that," Joker drawled, "you were just as curious as me."

"I might have been a bit more diplomatic..."

"_You_ wouldn't have asked at all," Joker shot back with a smirk. "Makes you wonder, though, how a person comes through that shit in one piece. I mean, how do you even start to deal with something like that?"

"How do you deal with _that_?" Alenko asked, pointing at the pilot's crutches hooked over an empty chair.

Joker frowned at him. "What, the Vrolik's? That's different," he said dismissively. "I've always had that, never known anything else. Shepard had a normal life, you know? Then bam, all gone. I don't know how a person stays sane after something like that."

"I don't think many people do," Alenko said thoughtfully, looking off into the bar. "But if you're lucky, after a while sanity comes back."

"Speaking from experience?" Joker asked with wan sarcasm.

The other man didn't answer for a moment, continuing to look off into the room. Joker shifted in his seat. _Okay, so he is._

"Everybody's got something," the lieutenant said finally, "the difference is some people never get up again, and some people do. I don't think it's so different... _I_ can't imagine living with Vrolik's, but you obviously found a way."

Joker scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I guess it's what my dad liked to call 'building character'."

Alenko rolled his eyes. "God, you got that one too? I think that line got old with the dinosaurs."

Joker nodded his agreement, then casually steered the conversation toward less weighty topics. This went on for some time, until the pilot saw Alenko's focus change to something off to the side, and looked around to see Shepard and Williams descending the stairs. The two women apparently found something uproariously funny, and were laughing between themselves as they headed toward the main bar. Ashley glanced over in the direction of their table, a wicked grin on her face.

"_That_ can't be a good sign," Alenko mused.

"We're screwed," Joker sighed with mock resignation.

After lingering at the bar for a few minutes, Shepard and Williams walked back toward the table. Ashley carried a nondescript dark glass, but the commander's drink was layered in startling green and blue. The chief was still chuckling heartily.

"Something funny?" Alenko asked nonchalantly.

"Girl stuff," Williams said archly.

Joker shot Alenko a quick 'I told you so' look, then peered suspiciously at Shepard's exotic concoction as she took her seat. "What the heck is that?"

"I don't know," Shepard said cheerfully. "I asked Doran to surprise me."

"Looks pretty fruity." Ashley sniffed skeptically. "Or possibly radioactive." Based on her tone, it was debatable which condition the chief thought was worse.

"If I'm going to have a drink, I intend to enjoy it," the commander pronounced. "I don't believe in alcohol that is an exercise in masochistic self-punishment; I measure the quality of my drinks in LPUPSI."

Joker raised an eyebrow. "LPU...?"

"I'll bite," Alenko said.

"Little Paper Umbrellas Per Square Inch," Shepard replied with a sly smile. She took a sip of the drink, then made a speculative face. "Woo. Float like butterfly, sting like brick. Perfect."

Joker quietly congratulated himself on the successful execution of his little venture. Aside from the obvious goal of getting the chief out for a drink, there was the added bonus of observing the enigmatic Commander Shepard in a setting other than barking orders and killing bad guys. Alenko rounded out the group nicely, the steady counterbalance to the boisterous Williams.

It was increasingly evident to Joker that whatever Shepard had suffered in past years had not broken her but instead tempered the woman into steel. The human underneath that thick armor meted out her real affections with extreme care, but Joker suspected that anyone that succeeded in earning them won a friend who would literally move heaven and earth in their defense.

The pilot quickly decided that Ashley was the kind of person you'd want to invite to a party. With a few drinks in her, she was talkative, laughed easily, and seemed to be an endless repository of funny stories and decidedly off-color jokes. She had a contagious enthusiasm for living.

There was something refreshingly honest about the three marines. Joker had to wonder if facing death every day in a very up-front kind of way made people less susceptible to pretenses, more sharply aware of what was and wasn't worth making a big deal about. Nothing irritated the pilot more than people who got offended but pretended they weren't, plastering on fake smiles and saving up their offense like ammunition stockpiled for some future war.

The evening wore in a pleasant fashion as they traded stories and humor and generally steered clear of mentioning the Council or the Reapers. At one point Ashley headed off to investigate the dance floor on the promise that she would be back.

"Well, time for me to wimp out on you guys," Shepard said a little while later, standing up.

"Going to turn into a pumpkin?" Alenko asked, failing to completely hide his disappointment.

"Nah," the commander replied with a smirk, "but at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow everybody's favorite fairy godfather Ambassador Udina wants to waggle his finger at me some more, so I should have my head screwed on straight enough to pretend I care."

"Alright Commander," Joker drawled, "The lieutenant's going to stay and have another drink with me." Alenko glanced at him with an questioning 'I am?' expression.

"You boys be good," Shepard said smoothly, dropping an amiable hand on the lieutenant's shoulder as she turned to go.

"Not if I can help it," Joker answered with a grin as Alenko stumbled over his own goodbye. The pilot knew exactly the kind of power that sort of seemingly stray touch held, and cynically wondered if she'd done it on purpose.

The lieutenant watched her go, then turned back and fixed Joker with a wan smile. "You know, if you're going to hit on me, you could at least pick up my tab or something."

Joker chuckled. "Aw, Alenko, you're cute and all, but I just can't take hairy legs."

"I guess it wasn't meant to be," the lieutenant said mournfully, tracing his finger through the droplets of water left behind on the table by the condensation of cold drinks.

Joker shrugged. "Yeah, well, Shepard gives me enough heart attacks as it is, I'm not going to give her an excuse to show up outside my pod in the middle of B-shift with an ax."

The lieutenant's jaw tightened.

Joker folded his arms, smirking. "Oh, I'm _sure_ you're the first person _ever_ to fall for someone they technically weren't supposed to."

Alenko shot him an irritated look, then sighed. "I know I'm not. That doesn't make it any easier to deal with."

Joker was faintly amused the man didn't even try to deny it. Then again, Alenko was probably a terrible liar. The pilot flagged down a passing waitress and ordered two pints of beer, then turned back. "I didn't say it would," he said amiably, slouching comfortably in his chair. "But the mission won't last forever, and in the meantime, misery loves company. That's why you're going to have another drink with me, then we can slink back to the tin can, put our military hats back on, and pretend none of this matters."

A few minutes later, just as the waitress was leaving from dropping off their drinks, Williams came sauntering off the dance floor. Her face was flushed and strands of hair drifted free from her regulation hairstyle.

"Aw, I feel left out," she said with mock sadness, eyeing the fresh beers.

"If you want-" Joker started.

"I'm totally getting one of those things Shepard got!" she said brightly, bounding off toward the bar.

Joker frowned in disappointment, drumming his fingers on the table as he watched her go. He finally turned back only to find Alenko regarding him with a raised eyebrow. The pilot scowled in return, daring the other man to make a smart remark. Instead, the lieutenant picked up his beer and lifted it in toast.

"To misery," he said with a smirk.

"Hah!" Joker scooped up his drink and returned the salute. "Yes sir, the best kind of misery."


	17. Colossus

Standing in the Emporium, the famously expensive Presidium equipment store, Kaidan felt more than a little out of place in his plain military fatigues. The few other customers at the holographic inventory terminals were dressed in the latest of expensive fashions. He suspected that Delan, the store's hanar owner, tolerated his loitering because of his association with a Spectre. Then again, Kaidan had trouble picturing the unfailingly polite, jellyfish-like alien ordering anyone to get out.

Even though he could never afford anything here, it was still fun to read the specs, so he had multiple items up on the holographic panels and amused himself by making mental comparisons. It gave him something to do while Commander Shepard attended to some business or other with Barla Von, the banker who kept an office nearby. He was terribly curious as to what she was seeing Von about, especially given what they'd learned about the volus' connection to the so-called Shadow Broker, but the commander had insisted it was personal business.

Kaiden had just pulled up the readouts on a third omni-tool when Shepard appeared around the entrance of the Emporium and came toward him.

"Ma'am," he greeted her as she walked up. "Where'd Williams get off to?" He glanced out in the direction of the Presidium's open air.

"I sent her down to C-Sec to pick up some things I ordered from the requisitions officer," Shepard said, eyeing the terminal holo-displays.

"I'm surprised she agreed to run an errand without complaint," Kaidan said with a small smirk.

"She's got plenty of incentive... one of the things she's picking up is a new experimental assault rifle. So what are you looking at?" Shepard stepped up to look at what he'd selected.

"Just window shopping." He cycled negligently through some of the display panes, trying to distract himself from thinking too much about how close she suddenly was. "They have some interesting things in stock since last time we were here."

"Delan never misses an opportunity to remind me how good his stuff is..." Shepard mused as she reached out and scrolled back a few panes, stopping on the one with the words 'Kassa Fabrication' printed across the top in bold lettering. She scanned the specs with a practiced eye.

"Those are some really impressive numbers for a light-weight hardsuit," she said finally.

"Yeah, as good as I've ever seen," he replied, trying to sound casual. "It's a new model, with Sirta's latest integrated medical exoskeleton, two shield capacitor upgrade bays, and an optional amp booster. Plus..."

She glanced at him.

"...y'know, it looks cool," he finished, grinning slightly.

"Very important," she replied with a sage nod.

Kaidan took a half-step away from the display. "Anyway, if you're done with-"

"Do you want it?"

Kaidan stopped, stunned. _She can't possibly be serious._

"Heh... ah, who wouldn't? But that's several times my annual salary right there," he said carefully, pointing at the price listed below the specs. "And I sort of like the fact that I've made it this far in life without getting into irrecoverable debt."

"I think you underestimate what kind of bounties we get for ore telemetry, never mind the other interesting things we find in dangerous places. Why do you think I went to speak to a professional banker?" she said in a businesslike tone. "Anyway, I can't have anyone on my team going under-equipped when something better is easily available."

Kaidan stared at her, feeling slightly faint. _Easily?_

She looked at him sidelong, a sly smile spreading across her face. "Besides, this way you'll match Wrex."

"Oh... great..." he said weakly, a giddy sensation bubbling up in his chest.

Shepard was already walking over to the Emporium's hanar proprietor, whose pink body was alight with a gentle glow, no doubt in anticipation of a profitable sale. Kaidan stood rooted, his brain galloping heedlessly ahead to the happy hours of tinkering, tweaks and upgrades that would make this new armor firmly his own.

_It's not a toy, I swear._


	18. Ruin

Liara squinted into Binthu's murky sky. High above them, sickly, sulfurous clouds hid the light of the star Yangtze, scattering its rays into an orange haze. She could only hope the _Normandy_'s weather predictions had been accurate, knowing the atmosphere's proclivity for torrents of acid rain.

But their target was close at hand. Through the murky air, the anomaly they'd picked from orbit was clearly visible, thrusting up out of the rocky basin. The jet-black pyramid stood out starkly against the sullen sky, seemingly untouched by centuries of acidic downpours, its smooth sides drinking in the planet's ruddy light.

Liara's heart pounded with excitement, walking beside Commander Shepard as they approached. Her mind was abuzz with imagining what new secrets this mysterious edifice might contain. Lieutenant Alenko walked slightly ahead, the crated scanning equipment balanced easily on one armored shoulder.

Suddenly, Shepard's steps faltered. Liara looked around questioningly, only so see the commander holding her head with both hands.

"Shepard?" Liara asked worriedly, stepping quickly forward to catch the woman's arm. "What's wrong?"

Lieutenant Alenko's head snapped around in alarm and he reversed direction toward them. Liara could barely make out Shepard's eyes through the narrow, tinted visor, but they were clamped shut, and she could feel the commander trembling. Shepard pulled free and took several steps away, fending off both Liara and the lieutenant with an outstretched arm. She seemed to shake herself, wagging her head back and forth.

"Commander, what-" Alenko asked, stepping forward.

"Don't! Just..." Shepard ground through her teeth. "I'm... fine. Just... go get your readings."

"This can wait!" Liara said hurriedly. "I-"

"We're not coming back here, Liara," Shepard said curtly. "Lieutenant, stay and help her." With that, the commander turned and walked unsteadily back in the direction of the Mako, one hand to her head.

Liara and Alenko watched her go. The archaeologist flipped her comm channel to the lieutenant only.

"What's... Do you know what's wrong?" she asked.

"No," he responded shortly, still staring after the commander. For a moment it seemed like he would go after her anyway, but then he turned back, hefting the scanning equipment. "Let's just get this done."

Liara nodded, and the two of them made their way down toward the base of the black pyramid. They moved the ground-penetrating scanner around to strategic locations, letting the computer build a three-dimensional map of what lay below the ground. Liara's excitement over the new ruin warred with her concern for Shepard, who remained silent throughout.

The lieutenant was clearly getting restive by the end of the hour, so instead of risking any kind of unpleasantness, Liara decided they'd collected enough data for now. She could happily have remained for days, but the scans were probably more than enough to solicit funding for a new dig from the university at some later date. The two of them collected the gear and headed back to the Mako.

Liara climbed into the vehicle to see Commander Shepard seated in the front seat, head down. The lieutenant came in after the asari, shutting the door and re-pressurizing the cabin.

"Did you get what you wanted, Liara?" Shepard asked, turning slightly in the archaeologist's direction.

"Yes," Liara answered. "The subterranean ruins seem to be extensive, I would have to come back with..." All at once concern overwhelmed her and she moved forward to sit on the edge of the seat beside the commander, opening her visor. "Please Shepard, are you all right?"

The commander cycled her visor open as well and rubbed her eyes with thumb and forefinger. "I'm... yes, I think so. But... something very bad happened here," she said heavily.

"What do you mean?" Alenko asked, sitting down in the seat behind Liara's.

"I'm not... exactly sure," Shepard answered wearily. "But part of the message from the beacon was from this place, or at least I think so. It's confusing, and... frightening. Not as bad as the dreams I guess, but..."

"What dreams?" Liara asked, leaning forward.

Shepard seemed to shiver slightly. "The beacon message has been hanging around in my head all this time, but ever since Feros... I don't know, maybe my brain is trying to process everything- the Cipher, all of it. So I get these vivid nightmares; it's the beacon message, but... It's like my brain is trying to understand it by substituting people and places I know into the vision."

"By the Goddess," Liara breathed. "But the vision is so... violent..."

"I don't get a lot of sleep on those nights," the commander said tonelessly.

"Does this... happen a lot?" Alenko asked quietly.

"Since the Cipher, more than I'd like," Shepard said. "But this... was more like deja-vu." She waved a hand in the vague direction of the pyramid.

"That means the sense you've already seen this before, right?" Liara said quickly, happy she remembered the phrase from one of her papers on human culture.

Shepard glanced in her direction with a wan smile, which quickly faded. "Yes. I've gotten the feeling before, but never this strong. I think... I think the Reapers came here, fifty thousand years ago. This planet used to be green... and now it's dead." She rubbed her eyes again.

Liara bit her lip, then reached out and grasped the commander's hand.

"You should not have to bear this alone, Shepard," the archaeologist said encouragingly. "If you would allow it, I can try to teach you some asari meditative techniques. They might help to put the beacon vision into a separate place in your mind."

Shepard's brow creased with brief skepticism, but then she quirked a weary smile. "Sure, I'll... try anything at this point. Nothing _I've_ done has helped."

Liara smiled back. "Good! We can start as soon as you have some time."

Shepard nodded and sat up. "Let's get off this rock before it rains."

* * *

Once safely back on the _Normandy_, Liara spent some time fussing with the scanning equipment, downloading the collected data to a disk and stowing the heavy scanner itself in the cargo bay. She'd felt a little silly asking to have the device brought on board a military ship, but now it seemed wholly justified.

She stowed her weapon in her locker, then turned to go just as the lieutenant walked up from behind, pulling off his helmet. The new black armor made him look like a gap in space in the dim cargo bay.

"Liara, wait."

The words brought her up short, and she turned back to see Kaidan looking at her. He raked his fingers through his unruly hair, a gesture Liara had come to recognize as somewhat self-conscious, even nervous.

"Is there something wrong?" she asked.

"No... No." He shook his head. "I just wanted to talk to you. I... feel like we got off on the wrong foot."

"I'm sorry?"

He hesitated, then chuckled briefly. "Uh... I mean, there's some kind of tension between us, and I don't think it needs to be there."

"Oh, I see. Well, your way of saying it is certainly more efficient," Liara said vaguely, unsure.

Kaidan shifted his weight. "Look, it's not... that I dislike you, I don't. I'm just... a little envious I guess."

"Envious?" Liara asked, confused.

His brows furrowed slightly as he seemed to collect his thoughts. "We... humans that is- spend our entire lives trying to connect with other people, some of us better than others, but... No matter how hard we try... even if we spend our entire lives with one person, this is as close as we get." He held his hands out, palm to palm, an inch apart.

"Ever," he said after a moment, lowering his arms. "But... the dream of closing that gap pops up in our culture all the time, in our fiction and stories. You could say that touching someone else's mind is a collective fantasy of ours. And it was always just a fanciful idea, until..."

"Until you met the asari," Liara finished quietly.

He nodded, and stayed quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, the words sounded almost forced. "And now, you... As a matter of... mission priorities, just because of the job we have to do, you have that connection. With... Shepard."

Liara looked away, a rush of understanding flooding her mind and shining a new light not just on this situation, but on all humans.

"Is it that you think Shepard and I..." she ventured.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I prefer not to assume I know when I don't, but not being sure just... makes it worse. I just thought we could talk about it, clear the air... The... three of us." The tone of his voice suggested he would rather march straight out the airlock into space, but his expression was resolute.

"That's not necessary," Liara said in a soft voice.

He frowned questioningly.

Liara was tempted to tell him about the night she'd awoken in her pod with a shriek. About how she lay curled in a ball with her arms wrapped around herself for an hour or more, trembling, sure beyond the shadow of a doubt she'd been disemboweled. Sure that when she raised her hands they would be clad in slate-gray armor and coated with blood.

It had been a slip, an amateurish failure of proper mental techniques, allowing curiosity to get the better of her. Later, when she'd had a chance to properly meditate on the memory, she could correctly compartmentalize it safely away from her everyday ones, as she'd been taught. But there was no doubt her curiosity had been satisfied- she now knew more intimately than she could ever want exactly where Shepard's mysterious scar had come from. The weight of the memory was staggeringly intense, not just for the moment itself but for all the emotion heaped on it later. Liara doubted she would dare return to contemplate the memory more directly, perhaps for years to come.

She was tempted to tell the lieutenant how understanding came at a price all its own.

Liara looked up, catching the man's dark eyes. "You are right, I have touched Shepard's mind. And although it was to see the prothean vision for myself, one cannot help but see other things as well. It's the nature of the connection; minds are not so ordered as computers."

She smiled sadly. "I do not need to ask her, Kaidan, because when I touched her mind it was you who was there."

He blinked, half opened his mouth and then closed it.

"So you see, Lieutenant, it's not that I dislike you," she said without rancor. "But you could say that I am envious."

"... I'm sorry," he said after a moment.

"Why? The decision is hers alone."

"Uh, that's not... quite what I meant," he replied. "I just mean that I've been where you are and I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

Liara was surprised but genuinely touched by his empathy.

"It's probably for the best," she said quietly. "I think you make her happy, Kaidan. And I think she needs that very much right now. Thank you for your insight... you've given me much to think about."

With that, Liara left the lieutenant with his thoughts and made her way upstairs to the welcome solitude of the back of the medical bay. She turned the data disk over in her hands, but the excitement didn't come back. Instead she put it down and leaned against the cold metal wall, finally sliding down to sit on the floor, dropping her head into her hands.

_By the Goddess... why do they affect me so much?_

Maybe it was too easy to love those that were already dead, because they did nothing but stay dead. Enigmatic, distant, and totally safe. Loving a living being, well... the living could speak, think, change.

They could choose.

Something in her wished she'd never come aboard. But as someone who valued knowledge above all else, it would be foolish to deny the vast wealth she had come to own by being on the _Normandy_.

She hugged her knees and allowed her mind to drift, seeking peace in the void between thoughts, letting her tangled emotions run their course and finally settle. At length, a new resolution formed in her mind.

_The matriarchs say we are living memory._

_I will remember you, mother. When everyone has condemned you as the betrayer, I will remember that you went into the darkness to bring light. I will remember that even in blackest night, you still had the strength to give us the key. I will try... to be as strong as you, mother._

_And you humans... so beautiful and terrible, so bright and brief and forever alone, I will remember you. As I bring the protheans into the future, so shall I you. Even after all of you are dust, I will carry on the memory of what you do here, for all of us.  
_ _  
Shepard... as long as I live, so will you._


	19. Whirlwind

Kaidan gingerly fed the biotic amp connector into the jack in the back of his skull and settled the device into place. The asari-made amp was new, and he was still getting used to the way it felt; it made his brain hum like he'd downed too many energy drinks at once. He hadn't dared ask how much it could have possibly cost when Shepard had given it to him, but he suspected it was in the class of items that never deigned to be listed in catalogs or sold in stores. Even the case it came in looked expensive.

He'd tried to rein in the excitement that came from owning such advanced equipment. He was acutely aware the best gear in the galaxy wouldn't save him if he made a stupid mistake in the field, and arrogance had a way of breeding mistakes. But Shepard had lavished her unorthodox team with the best equipment she could find; it made him a little light-headed to try and tally the small fortune of top-of-the-line paraphernalia currently occupying the _Normandy_'s cargo bay.

Standing beside him, Chief Williams fussed with her assault rifle, rechecking the rail extensions and popping the heat sinks to make sure they didn't stick. The fact the experimental weapon was unmarked by any decoration or manufacturer's logo only made it look more dangerous.

Tali and Garrus were quietly discussing something, omni-tools lit. The dull orange glow of the holographic interface glinted off the quarian's mirrored faceplate as she tapped in commands with a quick, expert hand. Liara fidgeted quietly, shifting her weight and rolling her shoulders to settle her armor into place. She wore the distant expression of somebody who was mentally preparing for the task ahead.

Wrex stood like the totem to some obscure war-god; motionless, an obsidian monolith slashed with blood-red warpaint. Looted from a geth base in the Armstrong cluster, Shepard had allowed the krogan to keep the armor on the condition that Tali made a thorough inspection of it first, checking for any possible connections to the so-called Indoctrination effect. But his prize had passed all conceivable tests, and now that fearsome mien would surely only add to Wrex's already legendarily dangerous reputation.

Just then, the cargo elevator door rumbled open and Commander Shepard strode through, her helmet tucked under one arm. Her own addition to the parade of expensive gear was a suit of Armax Predator armor, mottled in a dark green camouflage pattern.

Not for the first time, Kaidan wondered if armor designers didn't have a slightly sadistic streak in them. Military hardsuits were designed to be as much as possible a second skin to the fighter, to allow freedom of movement and protection both, but didn't leave a great deal to the imagination. The regular armors could be pedestrian in appearance, but it seemed the more expensive ones had been specifically designed to subtly accentuate the silhouette of the wearer, ostensibly in the name of flexibility.

Years of service and the harsh realities of the battlefield had mostly inured Kaidan to the sight of athletic women in armor, and he did his best to keep the more indecorous thoughts safely walled off from being a dangerous distraction in the field. Maybe it was the undercurrent of tension already in the room, but that wall felt particularly flimsy as Shepard came to a stop in front of the assembled team members.

Kaidan and Williams stood at attention and Garrus fell in beside them, a reflex of his military training. Liara followed suit, but Tali just folded her arms and waited. Wrex simply turned his massive head in the commander's direction.

As Shepard surveyed them all, Kaidan found himself trying to squash the errant thought of how much fun it would be to take that expensive armor off her. He kept his gaze rooted on the far wall of the cargo bay in lieu of risking it wandering of its own accord.

"All right, listen up," Shepard said crisply.

"You've all been briefed. We'll be dropping in two teams; the first will go ahead in the Mako to clear out ground defenses, the second will sweep the rocky approach for snipers. We'll regroup at the entrance and breach the main complex together. We don't have specs, so I'll be relying on your on-site scans.

"These aren't brainless monsters or two-bit mercs we're facing- these are well-trained, experienced soldiers. Our information shows that Cerberus counts among its members some of the elite of the Alliance military, so expect to face anything and everything.

"But make no mistake, these people have abandoned what it means to be human. They've proven themselves to be nothing more than murderers, totally divorced from law and accountability, and willing to spend lives freely in the name of their twisted vision. It's time to put a stop to it.

"Individually, you've all proven yourselves a hundred times over. It is time to speak as _one_, the voice of the whirlwind. Send these dogs howling back to hell."

With that, Shepard strode past them to the Mako, pulling her helmet on as she went.

Kaidan tried to shake off his stubborn wayward thoughts as he pushed his own helmet down over his head. Now wasn't the time to dwell on personal matters, no matter how hard that task had become of late. It was just too easy to think about the little conversations and the quiet flirting that snuck into them, too easy to slip into the heady thrill that came with knowing she returned his feelings.

_Not now. Now is the time to do your job, and get everyone home safe._

_Fight now, dream later._

* * *

The Cerberus complex was cavernous. The architecture made it clear the main section had been there for some time, but a network of new tunnels and rooms had been drilled into the bedrock fairly recently. There were living quarters and common areas, but most of the space seemed to have been given over to lab equipment, and, ominously enough, vacant holding cells.

As they fought through the hallways, the logic of Shepard's sometimes odd squad decisions over the past weeks and months suddenly became clear. The commander seemed to have built up a clear sense of what each team member's strength was, and exactly where to apply it in order to overcome a tactical situation; be it disruption, finesse, or outright bludgeoning. There was a kind of deadly beauty to it, the way they cut a swath through the storm of Cerberus soldiers. Despite the grim nature of the task, Kaidan felt a certain pride to be part of this unconventional but uniquely efficient squad.

The only close call came when the team split up to cover a branching section of passageways and rooms. In a storage space piled high with metal crates, a profusion of blind corners made for slow going.

Kaidan recognized the thunk of a tech grenade hit behind him, but too late to do anything about it. The whole world skewed violently to one side as a bright shock of pain flared in his head and his muscles convulsed spasmodically. Half blinded, he stumbled sideways in a futile attempt to get away from the tech grenade's crawling touch. Through the haze, he felt the flare of dark energy off to his right the instant before it hit. Reflexively he tried to counteract the effect, but his overloaded amp gave him an agonizing shock of feedback just as the impact slammed him painfully into a stack of crates.

Immediately, gunshots rang out and his kinetic shield hissed in protest. Kaidan barely had time to register that he was in serious trouble when the local gravitational field pulled hard again, making his head flare with more needles of pain. He rolled over and looked up through doubled vision to see his attacker standing only ten feet away; the Cerberus soldier's face contorted in pain as he writhed in the middle of a roiling field of dark energy. Blood ran freely from the man's nose as he stumbled forward, trying desperately to escape the shearing forces- only to run straight into Shepard's waiting shotgun.

At that moment Shepard was a vision to Kaidan's addled brain, a Valkyrie among mere mortals. She strode past him, her biotic barrier flowing around her like blue fire as she blew a fist-sized hole in the Cerberus trooper's chest.

Three more enemy soldiers burst around the corner. The commander didn't bother to run for cover, instead planting her feet solidly amid the hail of gunfire and pulling her right hand up hard. Gravity heaved sharply and the two lead Cerberus agents slammed headfirst into the low ceiling with a sickening crunch. The third scrambled away from the wavering field of dark energy only to be punched off his feet by the crack of a sniper rifle.

Shepard glanced back in Kaidan's direction as he stood up, shaking off the last of the grenade's effects. Breathing hard from the exertion of biotics, relief flickered briefly across her face before the steely mask of battle returned.

"They're trying to pull a flank from the south," the commander barked into the comms as she slid up to the corner and glanced around it. "Chief, cut off that door!"

"Aye aye, Commander!" Williams answered, a predatory lilt to her voice.

The blue energy field in the center of the room gave out, and the two Cerberus agents thudded to the floor. One was clearly dead, his head cocked at an unnatural angle and eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling. The second one groaned, his limbs flailing drunkenly as he tried to stand and re-orient himself. Garrus walked up from behind Kaidan, sniper rifle resting on one shoulder as he smoothly pulled his pistol off his hip and put a round neatly between the dazed Cerberus man's eyes without breaking stride.

Kaidan swallowed hard, reminding himself that was more mercy than Cerberus probably ever showed to anyone who found themselves in this place. He and the turian took up position with Shepard as she began to advance down the hall. Rounding a corner, they came to a door which cycled open in response to their approach. The chatter of gunfire bounced off the metal walls.

A virulent curse burst over the comm channel. In Kaidan's HUD, a warning light indicated Ashley's armor was breached.

"Chief?" Shepard asked as they moved quickly down the corridor.

"I'm fine!" Williams snapped irritably. " ...ma'am. Just don't ask me to run anywhere."

"Sit tight, we're almost there," the commander said.

Shepard, Garrus and Kaidan hurried down the hallway to where the rest of the team held down the intersection. Williams stood slightly to one side. Blood snaked a thin stream down her leg from a wound in her thigh, but it seemed minor.

"Hmph, they have a lot of cover," Wrex grunted, firing down the short corridor. His heavy kinetic shield sparked from the return fire.

"Liara?" Shepard said, looking over at the asari.

Liara nodded. Her corona flared to life, and she stepped into the opening and performed a fluid, sinuous gesture. Down the corridor, Kaidan felt the gravitational field heave and swirl with a sensation that was somewhere between his stasis trick and Shepard's shearing warp.

Three Cerberus troops holding the open doorway scrambled helplessly against the bizarre eddy of blue energy, flying up into the air and bouncing against each other. A fourth hung onto the door frame and was able to pull himself back into cover as Shepard's team mercilessly gunned down his companions.

Eyes wide with desperation, the last Cerberus man dropped into a stance and lashed out with one hand, blue biotic corona flowing off him. Wrex stepped deliberately out of cover and into the distortion, his own powerful corona swallowing the attack. The krogan marched purposefully through the dark energy and straight up to the unfortunate man, ignoring the pistol shots pinging off his black armor, and almost negligently clubbed the Cerberus biotic across the jaw with the butt of his rifle. The man flopped unceremoniously to the ground.

"Nice challenge up front, Shepard," Wrex rumbled, turning slightly. "But I think we're into the leftovers."

"Seems like discipline is breaking down," the commander agreed.

Kaidan sidled up to the mouth of the corridor the Creberus troops had been defending and peeked down, but there was no one. The passage went straight for about fifty feet, then turned to the left. In the drifting currents of recycled air, a particular, pungent scent drifted down the hall. Kaidan recognized it instantly, much to his stomach's chagrin.

"Commander, do you smell that?" he asked as Shepard appeared at his elbow.

"I was hoping I imagined it," she answered, wrinkling her nose.

"What is it-" Liara started, but stopped when her answer came shambling around the corner in the person of a Thorian plant zombie. The desiccated monstrosity turned slowly and lurched down the hall toward them, just as a second one emerged behind it.

"Aw hell, what are _they_ doing here?" Ashley grouched from off to the side.

"Drop them," Shepard ordered curtly, raising her shotgun.

Seven guns roared, and the two zombies shuddered and convulsed before tumbling to the ground. Taking the lesson hard-earned on Feros, the gunfire didn't let up until there wasn't much left but a misshapen pile of green gunk.

The whole team waited, guns poised, for several seconds, but no new monsters emerged.

"ExoGeni's files suggested connections to Cerberus, but I didn't think they'd actually have those things on-site," Kaidan mused.

"Negative contacts, Commander," Tali piped up, examining her omni-tool readout. "In fact... I read no active hardsuit signatures at all."

Shepard signaled the team to move forward, shotgun ready. Around the bend in the corridor was another door which stood open, revealing a room beyond.

The room had to have once been a prison of sorts. It was wide, with four thick pillars supporting the roof. Each pillar bore bulky emitters that would have generated dark energy fields between them had they been active, effectively creating a central cell. The floor was littered with corpses, mostly those of a dozen or more of the Thorian's plant-men. The metal walls were peppered with divots from high-impact gunfire.

In the center of the room, a man lay on his back in an almost peaceful pose. He wore a nondescript white shirt, but his pants were immediately identifiable as Alliance military dress uniform. Shepard skirted the mouldering plant-men and bent to examine the recumbent form.

"We were too late for Kahoku," she said grimly, standing up. "He's dead."

"Looks like they released the Thorian things," Garrus said, moving around the side of the room with Tali and Liara close behind. "But the creatures must have turned on- hey, there's a door back here."

"Sweep for hostiles," Shepard said, walking to the far end of the room, warily scanning the corners of the cavernous space.

Kaidan glanced around the wide room, picking out a few more human bodies. One was lying face down in a puddle of the zombies' corrosive muck. The flesh visible beneath his helmet was slowly liquefying, revealing the musculature beneath in sickening detail.

A profusion of intense memories from the struggle on Feros intruded into his head, and Kaidan looked away as his stomach lurched. His gaze fell on Ashley, who was standing deliberately on her uninjured leg. He turned and walked over to her, relieved to have something to focus on besides the scene in the room.

"Have a seat, Chief," he said, pointing to a low power relay box that jutted out from the base of one of the pillars.

"I guess it just isn't a good fight until someone gets pegged, huh?" she grumbled as she did so.

"That's what you get for sticking out as the most dangerous person in the room," he said, pulling his medkit off his back. "But it's just a flesh wound, and it's almost stopped bleeding on its own."

"Hooray for standard issue gene mods..." Ashley said absently, restless as he applied medi-gel to her wound.

"Commander, there's..." Liara's voice trailed off over the comms.

"What is it, Liara?" Shepard asked.

"There's six dead humans back here, Shepard," Garrus said curtly. "No armor or weapons. Looks like they were herded into a corner and just gunned down."

"I think... they were scientists..." the asari said quietly.

Williams just growled, fingering her rifle.

"There's a terminal in there, Tali's checking it out," Garrus continued. "With your permission Commander, I'd like to assist her. I think they were trying to purge their files."

"Yes of course, get everything you can," Shepard answered.

"Looks like someone turned on his buddies," Wrex rumbled. Kaidan glanced over to see the krogan shove the half-melted corpse with his foot.

"You think he opened the prison?" The commander's voice was strangely distracted.

"Huh, someone did. I know what treachery looks like, Shepard. Seen enough of it." The huge krogan waved a black-armored hand toward the eastern wall. "The guy over there by the console got one in the back of the neck point-blank, hard to see, but whoever did it got inside his shield."

Shepard frowned, her eyes distant. Then suddenly she turned and walked toward the door they'd come in from. "Fifth Fleet cruiser _Kyoto_ will be here in under an hour," she said before disappearing through the portal.

Kaidan watched her go, a cold worry curling in his gut.

"Something's not right," Ashley said quietly, looking after the commander as well.

"This whole place is the dictionary definition of 'not right'," Kaidan answered tightly, sidestepping the urge to vent his own concern and focusing back on his task.

"Glad we put these assholes out of business," she muttered, then remained quiet as he finished sealing the hardsuit's underlayer with a thick patch.

"Go," the chief said when he was done, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. "I don't care how badass Skipper is, no one should be wandering around this place alone. I'll stick around and make sure Wrex doesn't eat anyone." She shot the lieutenant a wry smirk, then stood up and limped away.

Kaidan worried briefly about how transparent his concern must have been, but there was no point in belaboring the issue, so he headed for the door. However, the commander wasn't in the next room as he'd expected. He followed Shepard's armor transponder signal down the winding corridor.

He finally spotted the commander on one knee, leaning over the body of one of the Cerberus agents. Kaidan recognized him as the one who had hit him with the shock grenade. Shepard's shoulders were slumped, and her right hand rested flat on the dead man's helmeted forehead.

Kaidan flicked off his comm pickup as he walked slowly up behind her. "Shepard, are you all right?"

Shepard's head cocked slightly. "I'm not hurt," she answered in a dead voice.

She stood up, turned, and strode in his direction, intent on moving past him. Without thinking Kaidan stepped sideways straight into her path, bringing her up short. Only a foot away now, he could see the ashen cast to her face as she rocked back on the balls of her feet, her arms rigidly at her sides.

"That's not what I asked," he said evenly. He was aware he was crossing a line in doing this- a nervous rush washed through his body.

"I can't... be anything else right now," she grated between her teeth, looking straight ahead.

Kaidan found himself willfully ignoring the sobering truth of her statement, quite simply unable to stand by, powerless to help when something was very clearly wrong. The memory of Toombs constricted his heart.

She abruptly moved to push past him.

"You're not alone," he said quietly, not moving.

Shepard stopped dead, so close he could smell the composite ceramics of her new armor through the nip of ozone and the coppery tang of blood. His heartbeat sounded very loud in his ears as he saw her swallow, then close her eyes and draw in a long, shaking breath. Kaidan shifted his weight deliberately, staying close but trying not to impose anything.

_And you're not used to that, are you?_

Abruptly Kaidan felt her grope for his hand and grasp it tightly. She opened her eyes and slowly looked up to catch his gaze. It lasted only a few seconds, but in that moment, Kaidan hated every thin millimeter of armor, every rule standing between them with a shocking intensity. Every fiber of his being cried out to find what was wrong and fix it.

She let go of his hand, and glanced back toward the corpse.

"Is that someone you..." Kaidan ventured.

"Someone I... I thought I knew," Shepard finished, her voice wavering slightly. "I wasn't sure until I came back to check. There was another... I think... The woman in the Devlon gear near the entrance." She exhaled heavily.

"They were biotics," Kaidan said absently, a chilly suspicion prickling his skin as a moment of silence stretched out.

"When the _Kyoto_ gets here, all of this is going to disappear forever." She turned back and looked him in the eye. "We both know the Alliance will just sweep Cerberus under the rug. But I... need to know what they were doing here, Kaidan. And I need to know what they did on Akuze." Her tone was even but quiet; she wasn't giving an order.

He nodded, happy to be given a concrete task to focus on that might help. "They tried to run a purge, but if anyone can get something out of it, Tali can. She does things with computers that would make the entire Corps of Engineers turn green."

Shepard looked back into the room. "You... gave me a bit of a scare," she said, waving a hand toward the crates that had been knocked askew. "I should have predicted they would try to get around us via the storage area."

"It's not your fault." He offered a smile. "No one can predict every contingency. Luck, right?" _  
_  
"I never want to rely on luck," she said wearily. "But I'll take it. Let's go."

Kaidan reluctantly followed her back down the corridor to where the rest of the team waited, new questions running through his head. But remembering how close that Cerberus soldier had come to killing him, he didn't really think it was luck that had saved him.

_Valkyrie._


	20. Spirit

Garrus sat in the comm room, trying to control his nervousness. He hadn't slept much in the last two days, and now he was both looking forward to and dreading this meeting.

The commander had been right, Cerberus was no paltry operation. He, Tali, and Lieutenant Alenko had labored for hours to try and reconstruct the damaged files pulled from Cerberus' computers. Even after the purge had been halted, the huge database was in shambles, and on top of that, thoroughly encrypted. The renegade group had spared no effort or expense to keep their secrets to themselves.

Finally the three tech-savvy members of the _Normandy_ crew had split up the task, and Garrus had worked tirelessly in his efforts to get around the security on his section. Until finally he'd found a key in an unexpected place, and with unexpected results. Unsure of how to proceed, he'd shown Alenko.

Now he and the human waited to pass on their discovery to Commander Shepard. It seemed like hours passed before the heavy door of the comm room cycled open and the commander entered. Garrus' heart sank to see the hard mask already in place on her face.

Shepard touched a few controls on the main console, locking out the camera and audio pickups in the room. The she turned to the two of them.

"What have you found?" The question was curt, but Garrus wasn't all that surprised she'd bypassed pleasantries. In her usual uncanny way, she already knew something grave was in the wind.

Garrus swallowed. "We succeeded in getting access to some of the data we retrieved from the Cerberus facility," he explained, looking down to the datapad in his hand and forwarding the information held there to the comm room's holo-projectors.

A mass of text appeared there. Garrus opened his mouth to explain technical details, but stopped. _Just get to the point, she won't care about that._

"We suspect that in its complete form, it's a database of all known human biotics," he said instead. "It seems like they kept extensive records, some more complete than others. They collected any data they could find."

"It looks like they co-opted all of Conatix's records," Alenko added. "There's people I know in there, people I trained with, people I served with."

"But you're not?" Shepard asked absently.

"It's, uh, alphabetical," he answered. "Most of the first part was deleted by the purge."

Shepard nodded slightly, not asking the obvious question. She reached out to the console and began skimming through the entries, stopping here and there. There were hundreds of them, some no more than a few lines; an exposure date, a date of birth and then death. Some of the records were fragmented, damaged or incomplete.

And some of the records were extensive, like Shepard's own. The commander stopped flipping finally when she came to it, her expression stony and her eyes narrow as she scanned the plain amber text.

Garrus looked away; he already knew what was written there. A long, sordid story of surveillance and harassment. A litany of tests, training results and evaluations, full of dehumanizing euphemisms that reminded him all too much of Doctor Saleon's records.  
_  
subject shows positive response to exposure_

_subject's parents refused involvement_

_subject exhibits high-clip output limitation, still viable for combat_

_subject survivor file ref. 746-Akuze recommend re-acquisition for further evaluation_

It went on and on, and it only made the turian angry to read. The silence in the room grew cavernous as empty minutes dragged by, broken only by the soft hum of the holo-projectors.

"So _I'm_ Cerberus," Shepard said at length.

"I knew the Alliance made mistakes," Alenko said quietly. "But I didn't know how deep it went."

"Probably more than either of us know," the commander answered in a bitter voice. "It's an arms race... No different than any other we've gotten involved in throughout our history. Except this time the weapons are people."

The unsettling silence descended again, until Garrus realized the commander was no longer reading the entry, only staring past it to the wall beyond with her arms folded tightly. Now came the part he dreaded.

"There was something else," he ventured.

Alenko looked at him sidelong, surprised. Garrus hadn't told him this part.

Shepard glanced at Garrus. "Yes?"

"A file... addressed to you, Commander," he explained carefully. "It's small, only a few lines of text. It was time-stamped 04:56:15, three days ago."

Shepard looked away, her brow furrowed in thought.

"That was during the raid..." the lieutenant said.

Garrus nodded. "I forwarded the message to your mail, Commander, encrypted, and deleted it from the original file dump. I... didn't think it was relevant to the bulk of the data."

The commander looked up at him. "You read it?"

Garrus' mandibles flexed unconsciously. _Did you have to ask? If you hadn't asked...  
_  
"Yes," he admitted evenly. "The message contained the database decryption key. Without it, it would have taken us a long time, maybe even years, to access the database. But otherwise... it didn't mean much to me."

Shepard nodded, her eyes distant. "Thank you for bringing this to me," she said in a frozen voice. "Nothing said here leaves this room, and the files will be kept in lockdown on the secure server until further notice."

"Aye aye, ma'am," Alenko said.

Without another word, Shepard turned and strode toward the door and out. As the heavy portal cycled shut, Alenko stood up, shifting in obvious agitation as he walked to the center of the room.

"Why didn't you... Why did you read it?" the lieutenant asked after several seconds.

Garrus shifted in his seat, taloned fingers playing over the edge of the datapad. "I didn't think. I was tired, frustrated, and I'd been fighting the crypto for hours. Then I found a piece of plain-text..." He looked up at the human. "You're right to be angry."

The lieutenant shrugged, then sighed. "I'm not... at you. Not really..." He trailed off, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of the door. "This whole thing just... I just wish I could do more."

"I angered the commander..." Garrus murmured.

"I... don't know. I think she just needs time to absorb everything. It can't be an easy thing to find out, being associated with something like Cerberus." Alenko's tone was uncertain even as he scowled at the closed door.

Garrus frowned at the floor, trying to sort out how he felt about it all. This was not the time for fractures to develop in the group, not this close to their goal.

But it was more than that. Garrus never could have predicted he would come to feel such loyalty to a human, and now he hated the feeling that he'd intruded into Shepard's private space and possibly offended her, even though it had meant getting much-needed information.

On the _Normandy_, all lines blurred, old prejudices died. Even loyalty had a new intensity.

"I wish I could do more as well," Garrus said.

Alenko looked at him.

"I still think about what Shepard told me after we found Doctor Saleon, what she made me understand. How is it that you say it? You can lead someone to the lake, but you can't make them drink? My father told me a lot of things, but... they always seemed like limitations."

The human quirked a half-smile. "Seems like ignoring our parents transcends species."

Garrus nodded slightly. "I treated everything he said as an admonition, and I never looked for the core that bound the thoughts together. Shepard said to me 'do you really think this is about you?'. I thought about that question for a long time. And she was right, I made it about me, my methods, my pride. Things that got in my way were automatically wrong. When Doctor Saleon escaped, it wasn't all those people he'd hurt that bothered me most, it was that he'd beaten _me_."

"None of this is about us..." the lieutenant mused.

Garrus sat back in his seat. "Did you know Saren lost a brother in the First Contact War?"

Alenko blinked. "No, I didn't. That would explain his opinion of humans..."

"I found that out before I came aboard the _Normandy_, when I was looking into his activities. At the time I didn't think much of it, but now I wonder, did he take it personally? Did he allow it to color his actions as a Spectre? It made me think about how a mind can get twisted up if you don't keep a grip on the real reasons for things.

"At any cost... That used to sound right to me. But that's what they did when they decided to make human biotics, wasn't it? Get the weapon everyone else has, at any cost. And now I see plainly what it cost." Garrus pointed absently to where the holo-projected text had been displayed.

The thought felt sick now, the knowledge that he'd been walking down that road. In the turbulence of his mind, he grasped a familiar litany.

_There is a will that passes understanding..._

"What?"

Garrus started slightly, realizing he'd spoken out loud. "It's, ah... just a saying, well, a prayer, really."

"Oh," the lieutenant said vaguely. "Uh, I didn't mean to intrude."

Garrus normally kept such things to himself, as was the custom. But nothing about this mission was orthodox, and maybe that custom didn't matter right now.

"I think I can translate it..." As the turian spoke, in his mind he heard his father's mother, her sonorous voice undiminished by age. He saw her hands clasped in the proper form, her steel-grey eyes glittering in the center of a face defiantly unmarked by colony crests.

"There is a will which passes all understanding.

"May the spirit of that will resound within this place, in the heart of every warrior and in the lives of all who serve here, awakening that which ought to be.

"May the consciousness of the clan become ever more as one, the many lives one life in the light of the self.

"May the fortitude and the fidelity of the clan burn as a clear flame in the service of the _Normandy_."

Alenko listened intently, brow furrowed. "You're... praying to the _Normandy_?" he said quizzically.

"No..." Garrus reached out and tapped the metal bulkhead of the ship with one finger. "Not this. The spirit that moves it, all of it, the ship and the people inside."

The human was silent for a long moment. "Burn as a clear flame... It's sort of poetic."

"It's very old," Garrus said quietly, "from before the Unification Wars. It doesn't translate perfectly... but I always liked it better than the more modern ones. They seem too, I don't know, flippant."

He sighed. "I don't like to think I'm the one to bring disunity. If I'd been more patient, maybe this would have gone differently."

The human shrugged. "In the long run, I think the truth is more important. And that's the reason we were asked to crack those files in the first place. Shepard knows that, and anyway I think she already suspected something like this."

Garrus gripped the datapad hard. _And something like this should never have been._

"You should get some rest, Garrus," Alenko said. "We're hitting the relay for Sentry Omega in ten hours."

The turian nodded absently, standing up but not following the lieutenant out of the room. He looked back at the holo-projector console, remembering the lines of plain-text that had been embedded in the database. The message was so short that by the time he'd seen it, he'd already read it.

_Shepard,_   
_  
I used to regret that you never came back to us, but as time passed I'm glad you didn't. And now it seems only right that it's you coming to tear out the heart of this beast._

_I'm in too deep, in for too much, but now it's done for good. Thank you for that._

_E._

There was a perverse comfort in the knowledge that no one, it seemed, was quite the same after knowing the human called Shepard.


	21. Zero

As the red-glowing number hovering in Kaidan's HUD counted down, it spoke in plain terms. The thought went through his head again.

_This is as long as I have to live._

Splashing through the murky water of the geothermal sink, he didn't have time to seriously contemplate the implications of that thought, and what fear he felt was surprisingly remote and unimportant. The task was easy; Saren could not be allowed to have an army of krogan warriors. The thing that would take that army away squatted in the ankle-deep water behind him, ominous in its stark simplicity. A drive core re-purposed as a bomb, the timer in his HUD linked to its detonation countdown.

_Hold the line._

Captain Kirrahe's speech had been impressive to listen to. Up until meeting the salarian STG unit, Kaidan's exposure to the fast-talking aliens had been limited to Citadel merchants and a few individuals of questionable motives. But the Special Task Group on Virmire had a lot more to recommend them- courage, experience and cunning.

Off to Kaidan's right, Commander Rentola was pressed up against the concrete pedestal of a transformer block, scanning the approaching geth with wide amphibian eyes. The salarian commander's skepticism about this whole assault irked Kaidan, but absolutely no argument could be leveled against Rentola's execution of Kirrahe's orders.

Two other STG agents waited to the left. Madar, the quick-witted engineer, readied several ECM grenades. The quiet and meticulous sniper, Anatore, sighted down his long rifle laid along a concrete pier. Kirrahe's team was a reminder that Shepard's team weren't the only ones fighting Saren. The half-insane salarians they'd found imprisoned in the extensive lab areas bore witness to the heretofore unknown depths of Saren's depredations.

Virmire was a case study in the old proverb about plans never surviving first contact with the enemy. That enemy had bought their diversion for a time, but now the beast was stirring.

The geth drop-ship cast a long shadow over the sun-drenched power plant. Not for the first time, Kaidan wondered at the wisdom of mounting the geth's single, glowing optical sensor in the center of their heads. It only made picking them out as targets that much easier. The months of fighting them had given him a clear picture of which ones to prioritize as the synthetics poured down the gently sloping geothermal stills.

_The bomb is set... hold the line._

Everything became noise and mayhem. Had the whole team been there, things might have been different, but Kaidan could feel immediately the tide was against them. The salarians were skilled, but a stand-up fight wasn't the kind of conflict their unit was meant for. The geth's hexagonal energy shields bloomed as they advanced, laying down a hail of gunfire. Anatore's sniper rifle cracked rhythmically as Kaidan and Madar fired ECM grenades as fast as they could charge them, Rentola finally gunning down any synthetics that got too close.

For a brief time it seemed Kaidan's small team might regain the advantage, but then one of the towering geth Juggernauts came striding down the concrete spillway. Red armor gleaming in the sun, it ignored the nearby explosion of an ECM grenade as it raised its huge gun-arm. Kaidan tried to take cover, but the blast of the huge synthetic's rocket lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the wall beside him, dropping him to his knees with the wind knocked from his lungs.

Dazed, he pulled himself back to his feet, feeling knives of pain in his side. His powerful shields and biotic barrier had taken the worst of the concussion, but Madar hadn't been so lucky. Even through the roar of adrenaline, Kaidan felt a pang of regret seeing the salarian's broken body as he pushed himself back toward the bomb with fatalistic determination. He could hear Rentola's rifle chattering as the salarian captain finally managed to fell the blood-red Juggernaut.

Suddenly Kaidan's left leg punched out from under him. He landed hard on his side in the shallow water, the jolt of pain from his hurt ribs forced the air out of his lungs. He got a mouthful of murky water as he tried to draw breath, leaving him coughing and choking.

Everything narrowed to the space between seconds as he expected every moment to be his last. The comm channel was alive with noise even as the battle raged, and Kaidan heard the voices of his friends calling out to each other. He wasn't sure how he was still alive, but there wasn't time to contemplate it. The water around him danced as an explosion shook the facility, and the wind blew dark, greasy smoke around him, bringing with it the cloying smell of burning fuel.

A geth shock trooper bore down on him with pulse rifle raised. Gritting his teeth, Kaidan shoved himself up on one elbow and hit the synthetic as hard as he could with a biotic push, concentrating the brunt of the gravitational force at the geth's head. The white-armored geth flew head over heels, its neck bent too far backwards. Brief, bitter amusement drifted through Kaidan's head.

_Right in the teeth._

He pushed himself up to to sitting position, groping in the shallow water for his pistol. He fired several times at the twitching shock trooper for good measure, then finally looked down at his leg. The detached part of his mind noted the messy exit wound in his thigh and the blood running freely from it; probably the result of a sniper shot from one of the Stalkers. Clinically, he assessed that bleeding like he was, he probably only had a few minutes left to live, even with the enhanced clotting factors from his military-issue gene therapy.

But it was irrelevant, as the number Kaidan came up with was greater than the hot, red countdown floating in his field of view. Seeing the bomb safely intact, he forced a grim smile as he pulled himself up next to it, fighting the vertigo of shock and blood loss and doggedly gripping his pistol.

A figure appeared suddenly out of the smoke, jogging toward him. He was raising his gun when he recognized the dark green armor. The fear hit him hard then, but not for himself. The number floating in his HUD was terrifyingly small.

He raised a hand to wave Shepard away, desperately calling for her to go, run, get away from the bomb. He caught her eye for the briefest moment, and seeing the grim determination there, he knew with sick certainty she wasn't going to listen to him.

The world swam away from awareness, dulling to distant sounds and movement as she bodily hauled him up. An unknown amount of time later, Kaidan slowly became aware that he was lying on his back. A shudder ran through the ground beneath him, jolting his consciousness. He forced his eyes open and blinked a few times to bring the red numbers into focus.

_It can't be long-_

00:00_  
__  
... what?_

There was no oblivion. The bright sun of Virmire had been replaced with a dim blue light. Reality slowly began to come back into focus as he realized the harsh sound he heard was his own breathing; needle-sharp jabs of pain penetrated the fog in his head with every inhalation.

Figures moved around in the dim light. He gingerly turned his head to one side, following the familiar voice among the many that bounced around the cavernous space he finally recognized as the cargo bay of the _Normandy_.

That unmistakable figure stood next to him, her voice clear and hard as she crisply delivered orders. With the recognition came a powerful rush of relief, but on its heels a terrible realization- if he was alive and Shepard was here, then it meant only one thing.

A numbing cold coiled around his heart as unseen hands pulled him onto a stretcher.

_Ash..._

* * *

Lying on a bed in the med-bay, Kaidan drifted in a half-doze, images and memories rolling and warring through the fog of medication in his mind. The tissue regeneration drug was potent, accelerating the body's natural healing processes and shaving many days off natural recovery time, but it wasn't any fun to be on. Speeding up the body's healing meant constant exhaustion, and coupled with recent events, made for restless, dream-filled sleep- when sleep came at all.

Those empty zeros still hovered behind his eyes, hot and red.

On top of everything else, a mix of curiosity and worry lingered in his mind. In the short time since he and Garrus had shown Shepard the Cerberus files, the commander hadn't spoken any more about it. Mostly he was worried- even her careful mask didn't conceal the fact the revelation about her training bothered her a lot.

The worry had only gotten worse when, before they had dropped onto Virmire, Joker had offhandedly informed him that when they reached the Sentry Omega comm buoy, Shepard had received a transmission from someone claiming to be an agent of the Shadow Broker. Given the nature of that enigmatic figure's trade, Kaidan could only gather that it hadn't been a social call.

There just hadn't been time. There was too much to do between researching Virmire, repairing the Mako, and tuning up his gear for the coming mission. He'd only gotten to speak to the commander during team briefings, and her demeanor had been crisply business-like. Kaidan couldn't help but feel shut out, even if it was a petulant and unprofessional sentiment.

Just another day... just another day and maybe he could have stolen a few minutes somewhere. Just a few words, a reassurance that things were okay.

But then suddenly Ash was dead. It didn't seem possible, it didn't seem real. Even knowing death could come for any of them on any mission still hadn't prepared Kaidan for the stark emptiness of it.

And this war against Saren had suddenly turned into a battle for existence as anyone knew it. Sovereign's sepulchral words still rang in his head, a voice like two gravestones rubbing together.

_Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction._

It felt so stupid and petty now, to have been wrapped up in his little navel-gazing world of fretting about a relationship he wasn't supposed to have. After the debriefing, Garrus had told him about how Saren himself had appeared at the power station, how the rogue Spectre had almost killed Shepard.

There was horror living in every thought he could muster.

Kaidan exhaled and opened his eyes, deciding sleep wasn't going to happen right now. He glanced around the room and was startled to see Shepard sitting on the bed next to his, chin resting on arms thrown around her knees. She remained still, staring at the far bulkhead of the med-bay.

He coughed lightly, his throat still raw from the exploding fuel tank's oily smoke. The noise had the desired effect, Shepard looked over at him. She appeared drawn and tired, her eyes slightly red.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Drugged to the eyeballs," he answered, his voice surly with weariness.

She shifted her weight. "I can leave you alone if you prefer..."

"No..." Kaidan rubbed his eyes, trying to banish the welter of images still crowding his mind. Part of him _did_ want her to leave so he could stew in his misery alone, but from past experiences, he knew that never did any good.

Shepard sat back against the scanning ring terminal behind her. "You looked like you had something to say after the mission debrief."

_Too much to say and not enough breath to say it in. _Kaidan gingerly pulled himself up into a sitting position, ignoring the protests of his ribs and leg.

"Doctor Chakwas is going to chew you out if she catches you," Shepard said with forced mildness. "I had a hard enough time getting her to let you come to the comm room at all."

Kaidan grunted, biting off a waspish answer. Every thought brought with it another one, all of them laden with grief and guilt, and the turmoil just built.

"I... we had it taken care of," he said finally, looking off toward the far wall as he forced the words out. "The bomb would have gone off, no matter what." _Ash didn't have to die, you could have saved her!_

There were any number of answers she could have given to his statement, some Kaidan had already heard, many he'd already tried to convince himself of. But he wasn't expecting what she actually said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!" he flared angrily.

"How would you have done it?" Shepard asked.

He blinked. "What?" The anger sputtered, but he clung to it stubbornly. Even forced, it felt better than the guilt- the tension pushed for somewhere to go.

"If you'd had to, how would _you_ have disarmed it?" she said.

Kaidan opened his mouth, then closed it, clenching his jaw. He could feel her gaze boring into him when she spoke.

"You just thought of at least a half-dozen ways."

He frowned, wishing she was wrong. "That's... that's not a fair test," he objected in consternation. "I helped put it together, I know how it worked. Anyway, none of the ways to disarm it were easy or fast. They wouldn't have had time."

Shepard continued evenly, relentlessly. "Kaidan, in that mine on Agebinium I watched you and Garrus disarm a strange nuke that was specifically designed to kill me in what... forty seconds?"

He closed his eyes, running a hand over his face and exhaling.

"I couldn't risk it, not if there was even the slightest chance," she said quietly, "because then all those lives would have been for nothing."

He just nodded, trying to let her logic penetrate the storm, to force the knot around his heart to unwind. He wanted to think the geth weren't as smart or as intuitive as organics, wanted to think he'd set it all up perfectly and would have defended it until detonation. A proper last stand.

"I just... I wasn't looking for death, Shepard," he said at length, staring down at his hands. "I've never looked for it. But down there I was... I knew it was coming, and I was okay with it, more than okay... I..." He sighed. "I know that probably sounds completely nuts."

She let out a small laugh. "No. I know what you mean, but I've never had a lot of luck trying to explain it, either. I don't think you really get it until you've been there yourself, and not many people have. And when it happens, it always takes a little while to come back from, mentally."

Kaidan finally looked over at her. She was sitting back, a faraway look in her eyes, reliving some past incident. Just above the collar of her fatigues, the dark skin of her neck was slightly discolored with bruising. Garrus' words came back to him, along with the glitter of the turian's pale eyes as his mandibles flared with anger. _Saren almost ended _everything _right there._

The sense of relief to have her just sitting there, alive, was palpable, but even that was still haunted by the shadow of the friend who didn't come back. "It's just that... every time I let myself be happy to be alive, all I feel is guilt."

"Survivor guilt is a monster I'm well acquainted with," she said softly.

Kaidan shifted, trying to ease the sullen ache in his side. "How do you deal with it?"

"It takes time. I promised myself I'd never forget the people I left behind," she said, running her fingers over the scar on her forearm. "And I try to do better, to do them justice with the time that was given to me."

Her voice hardened. "I was going back for her, Kaidan. In my head I saw it, no matter what she thought, it was going to happen. If Saren hadn't... Saren." She said the last word between her teeth, fists clenching.

"Goddamn him... I..." She laughed shortly, a humorless, brittle sound. "I could have _been_ him," she said quietly, wrapping her arms around herself and staring vacantly at the wall.

Her words made Kaidan's skin crawl. Then something in his head clicked into place. "You're... talking about the whole Cerberus thing, aren't you?" he said carefully. "That's why it bothered you so much."

"I am a weapon, that's what they trained me to be. For a long time I followed orders, I got the job done, no matter what it cost. I didn't fully realize that until you brought me that file... But they tried to recruit directly at least twice. I was offered transfers, pay raises… to go work for their secret branch."

"So what? You didn't go."

"I wanted to..." she said quietly. "But after Akuze... my confidence was shattered. I couldn't do it. And then things started to penetrate... me, my head. Affect me. I don't know why... at first I hated it, every inch of it. It made me falter, mess up. It destroyed everything I thought was important to being a good soldier."

Shepard fell silent, staring past the bulkhead to the depths of space beyond.

"What changed?" he prompted, terribly curious but afraid of breaking the trance, afraid she would shut down again.

"Little things," she answered at length. "Always little things, fragments. People... people thanking me for doing something, helping them. I realized I liked it, actually feeling good about doing something, instead of feeling nothing. It took a while, but I found new ways to do things, handle things, to just... be. I'm still working on it, really. When Captain Anderson dropped the whole Spectre thing on me I nearly laughed in his face. Me? Represent humanity? I'm still trying to figure out what that word means."

"Maybe Anderson chose you because not very many people even bother to try to figure out what that word means," Kaidan said.

She rubbed her temples. "I sure as hell wasn't going to say no to someone like him. But I wonder... if he'd known..."

"Shepard." Kaidan waited until she looked at him before continuing. "It doesn't change anything," he said with stubborn conviction. "I know somewhere you internalized that stuff about being good for nothing but killing, but you have to realize that's not what everyone around you sees. Measured with a slightly different morality, we're _all _murderers, following someone else's orders and hoping in the long run it amounts to being the right thing.

"But I've watched you have to deal with some of the hardest things anyone could have to deal with, ever, and come away with an answer that... well, even if it wasn't perfect, always carried the hope for something better. I don't think... I've met _anyone_ else who could do what you do. Cerberus doesn't change all the lives you've saved, or the lives you're fighting for now."

He dropped his gaze self-consciously. "And it doesn't change how I feel." In all the horror and turmoil, there was a certain relief to realize that was true.

In the silence that followed, he listened to her breathe, and to his own too-rapid heartbeat. He glanced up when he heard her shift and then slide off the bed. She stepped toward him, then reached out and slid her hand into his.

"I don't know why I needed to hear you say that," she murmured, "but I guess I did."

He moved his other hand to cover hers, relishing the simple warmth and contact that made his heart run even faster. He longed to see that unguarded smile again, that rare and devastatingly beautiful expression he'd taken to trying to coax out in those moments when they talked and flirted. He liked to think he was one of a privileged few to see it, that in those moments it was only for him. It never failed to warm him down to his toes.

But even the slight smile she wore now was weighed down by a leaden shroud of grief. For a dizzying moment the urge to just reach out and pull her close was appallingly strong.

"I better go," she said quietly. "Get some rest." He saw the regret in her eyes as she slid her hand free and turned to go.

Alone again, Kaidan rubbed his eyes, then lay back down and tried to find a position that didn't make his damaged ribs ache.

Shepard's logic seemed sound. All he could really do was trust her judgment, trust that she'd made her decision with a clear head. He wondered with a sinking feeling if he could have stayed objective if he'd been forced to choose between Shepard and someone else.

_She would trust me to make the objective choice, to do what had to be done._

_So that's what it would come down to, her life or her trust._

That hardly made the thought more palatable. And Joker...

_Oh God, how the hell do I explain to a friend that I came _ _home because she didn't?_

Sick at heart, he turned everything over in his head until at length, exhaustion pushed him into sleep.


	22. Live

Joker was busy nursing a stupendously bad mood.

They were supposed to finally have all the pieces, finally have the truth in all its towering, awful glory. They had it all, the audio logs of Sovereign itself revealing the true scope of the Reaper's existence, the location of the lost relay, and the name of the system Saren was headed for.

Staggeringly, all of that somehow _still_ wasn't enough. And to top it all off, that little weasel of an ambassador had taken the Council's side, ordering a lockdown on the _Normandy_ and her crew. After everything, all the blood and horror and the death... _death_ of Ashley Williams, the all-mighty Council fleet would sit at dock.

And wait.

Whatever else had happened, Joker had to give Anderson credit. The _Normandy_ was safely away now, the captain left behind the face whatever shit-storm they'd stirred up. At least the _Normandy_'s former captain had had the sense to realize what was going on, and the balls to do something about it. Joker fondly hoped Udina had been at his desk when Anderson had arrived in his office to force an override on the lockdown, and that the captain had been forced to take 'steps'.

Joker almost wished someone had caught up with them as the _Normandy_ fled the Citadel. Then he could really test the ship's capacities; really see just how good a dancer the _Normandy_ was in the ballet of destruction that was space combat.

Anything that would fill the sudden, gnawing void.

Joker was half paying attention to a thruster calibration test when the last person in the world he felt like dealing with appeared to his right.

"What the hell are you doing here?" the pilot said without looking over.

Alenko's face tightened. "I have to run a weapons check," he said shortly.

"I'm not in the mood for company," Joker growled.

The lieutenant bristled. "I'm not here to entertain you, I have a job to do."

"I'm sure you can find some _other_ pointless busy-work to do somewhere _else_."

There was a moment of silence.

"Jeff, if I could have..." Alenko's voice trailed off.

"Yeah, yeah, spare me." Joker clenched his jaw, biting off the rage. The thought still dogged him, that Alenko had set countdown early without specific orders to do so, costing them all the time to save Ashley.

But the truth was, Joker had no real idea what had happened on the ground. He had never stared down the barrel of dozens of guns held by remorseless, faceless enemies, never been forced to make a command decision with the weight of countless lives hanging on it, never mind his own.  
_  
_The internal war just didn't let up, pushing and pulling in all directions.

_This is _so _pointless._

Joker folded his arms and turned to look the dark-haired man in the eye. "If Ash had a say in the matter, d'you think she'd prefer you to mope around feeling guilty, or go out and kick Saren's ass?"

Alenko stared at him in stunned surprise. "I... uh... hadn't thought about it like that before," he admitted finally.

Joker smirked slightly. No matter what else, he still relished knocking people off balance, a long-standing habit born of defending himself against narrow-minded idiots. And he was firmly of the opinion the lieutenant needed a change of perspective.

"You have no goddamn clue what you have," the pilot said evenly, eyes narrow as he regarded the other man. "And if you go and waste it, I promise you I'll find a way to get up out of this chair and kick your ass."

"What I... ?"

Joker jerked a thumb over his shoulder down the hall. "The one person who has the best chance of actually beating this _monster_ could probably sure as hell use some company right now. I know _I_ would in her place, carrying the whole damn galaxy on my shoulders. All sentient life? Yeah, no pressure there!"

A grimace of conflict flickered across Alenko's face. "It wouldn't be-"

"Oh for fuck's sake, stop _rationalizing_ everything for thirty seconds and live a little!" Joker snapped, cutting him off. "It's not like we probably have a lot of chance left to do that, you know? Now get the hell out of here. I'm not gonna sit here and listen to you grind your teeth for the next six hours." He turned back to the flight controls.

Alenko stood rooted for a moment, then turned on his heel and made for the exit.

"Kaidan," Joker said.

The footfalls on the deck-plates stopped.

Without looking back, the pilot continued, "All that 'if I could have' stuff... for what it's worth, I know. And I know Shepard would have too."

He let the silence stretch out for a few seconds.

"Without hesitation," the lieutenant said quietly.

Joker drew in a long breath. "Just give me some time. Now beat it."

There was a pause, then the footsteps retreated down the corridor. Joker listened to them go, feeling the raw, rolling burn still writhing in his guts. It was easy to jump to conclusions, easy to assume things. But the stark memory of Ashley and Shepard laughing together pushed back against the irrational rage.

He rubbed his eyes. _Goddammit, they didn't kill her. Saren killed her._

Joker had spent a lot of his life angry at something or other; the unfairness of his illness, the constant background noise of both gross and subtle pity and mockery that followed him around like a dark cloud. Dealing with it gave him his smart-ass mouth, but it also galvanized into a focus few other people could match.

Years ago, it had come from the mouth of a mechanic, a solidly practical sort who listened to him rant at length about some now-forgotten slight before fixing him with a level stare.

_So?  
_ _  
It's just waste heat, Moreau. If you're gonna be angry, do something useful with it._

Waste heat. Joker wondered if, at this moment, it wasn't anything more than just the bitter resentment that he couldn't pick up a rifle and go personally blow the renegade Spectre's ugly face off.

_Do something with it._

Glowering down at the amber displays, he watched the familiar readouts twitch and change as the _Normandy_ accelerated through space, a blue-shifted arrow in the space between everything. In a few hours would come the time to reverse direction and run the reverse burn to decelerate, timed perfectly to hit real-space within range of the Mu relay.

He ran his hand over the smooth metal dash, watching the holo-display distort as he briefly shadowed the emitters. Idly, he spread his fingers and blocked some of them completely, causing part of the display to wink out.

A wicked smirk creased his face.

_I can't kill Saren, but I can kill his little toy._

_All right Sovereign, bring it on. I'll send your giant metal ass screaming back to dark space._

_In pieces._


	23. Corona

Kaidan stared at the amber console display, not really seeing it. His listless, unfocused attempts to get something done went nowhere, sputtering out after a measly few minutes of distraction, until everything came flooding back all over again.

Joker's words still burned him. Everything he'd been stewing in for the past few days since Ashley's death now seemed thrown into a different light. He recalled the clarity of those desperate minutes on Virmire, the uncomplicated knowledge that when the end came, he would die for something he believed was right. Was it arrogance, then, that made him think Ash hadn't somehow been as ready to die as he?

No one on the crew sought death, no one deserved it, but they all accepted it as a possibility. Ashley was one of bravest people he'd ever met; a soldier to the core. Kaidan found himself deeply troubled by the idea that feeling guilty over her death was really a disservice to her courage, especially when her true killer still lurked out in the shadows.

Another hour dragged glacially past, weighted by his troubled thoughts. He should have been in his pod, but right now, sleep was impossible. He shifted restlessly, trying to ignore the dull ache still haunting his ribs. The damage to the muscle of his leg was almost completely mended, but bones were more stubborn.

He deliberately avoided looking up at the row of three lockers set into the far wall. The memory of what had almost happened not twenty feet from where he stood was absolutely maddening. Shepard had seemed so defeated sitting there, back against the lockers, her face twisted into a bitter smirk as she reflected on the narrow-minded pettiness of Council politics.

_Can't just pull out a good ol' fashioned 'It'll be all right'..._

It hadn't felt like nearly enough. Shepard was probably the last person in the galaxy who needed protection, and certainly not a person who needed things done for her. But that knowledge did little to stifle Kaidan's desire to do something anyway, a need so strong it drowned the simplicity of so minor a thing as a few words.

_I'll figure something out..._ That's all she'd had to say to restore _his_ shaken confidence.

Kaidan wasn't really sure what had happened there, even in his own head. What bothered him wasn't what had almost taken place, but that it _didn't_ bother him, at least not in the way he expected. He was supposed to feel guilty for breaking regs, for not keeping his distance like he was supposed to, for almost kissing his commanding officer right there.

Rules. For one dizzying minute, they just hadn't mattered at all.

Those rules would have them parked at the Citadel in lockdown, sitting on their hands while Saren gathered his synthetic apocalypse. By those rules Kaidan was now a traitor, flying a stolen ship toward a forgotten world and an unknown weapon, based on the intel of an ancient, broken message he'd never even seen himself.

Rules weren't always convenient to follow, but they'd always lent structure and stability to his life. He wanted to think there were good reasons for all of them. Except now the only reasons seemed to be politics, arrogance and unwillingness to face the truth. For a time, the Council's hesitation to commit themselves seemed at least halfway reasonable, but now it went into the absurd. Why bother having Spectres if they were prevented from taking the most important action of all?

Kaidan ground his teeth, teetering precariously between the profound sense of betrayal that the military he had sworn to serve with his life had turned on him, and the gnawing fear they'd all chosen the wrong path. For a miserable time he contemplated the notion that he might be so swept up in his feelings for Shepard that he'd blindly followed some mad vision into mutiny and permanent disgrace.

Shepard. Everything was fine until the attraction to her started intruding into his neatly ordered world, a lava flow pushing into a seaside town, slow but relentless, burning down one house at a time. The change itself wasn't nearly as terrifying as how little he wanted to resist it. How easy it would be to just give in and let it consume him.

_The spirit that moves the _Normandy_._

Kaidan was a little skeptical about spirits. As far as he was concerned, there was only one spirit moving the _Normandy_, and she was somewhere behind him through the layered bulkheads, achingly close.

He looked up again, looked around. I was well past shift-change, and the steady trickle of crew members eating or heading to their pods to find restless sleep seemed to have stopped, leaving him alone in the silent heart of the ship.

Kaidan vacillated in the state of forlorn indecision for another half hour before something in his head gave out with an almost audible snap. He absently swiped his suddenly sweating palms across his pants.

_It's just... I just need to talk to her._

He felt a little faint reaching for the door pad to her quarters now that he was committed, but the fear of discovery drove him forward. He half-hoped she wouldn't answer, that she would be asleep, but the portal slid open. He stepped quickly through into the darkened room, lit only by the glow of her terminal display.

Just seeing her was a stark reminder that everyone on the _Normandy_ was in for everything he was, and even Captain Anderson was willing to risk his career to stop Saren from bringing back the Reapers. Whatever conflicts Kaidan suffered must be a hundred times worse for her, ultimately the one responsible for all of them. This wasn't lunacy. Even if he hadn't seen the prothean vision personally, he'd seen everything else. The pieces fit together too well for it be a deception, and even if it was, the stakes were just too high to risk doing nothing.

Shepard smiled when he entered, standing up from her desk to ask what he needed. Kaidan just launched into all his worries without thinking. Just standing there talking to her, even in awkward, half-joking tones, slowly vented the build-up of fear and tension over the mutiny and the seemingly impossible task ahead of them. At length, the suffocating knot around his heart began to ease, but a completely different tension started to take its place.

He became painfully aware of being alone with her, a locked door at his back, the bed in the shadowed corner of the dimly-lit room. The thought had seemed so unrealistic when it had first popped up, easily squashed. But now the same idea was large and loud, its only fires fanned by Joker's quite deliberate calling out. Despite everything else, Kaidan could feel the temperature of his blood inexorably go up another degree every time she met his gaze.

"Hell of a thing, isn't it?" he said, trying to encapsulate the whole dilemma. It felt like describing the surface of the sun as a little warm.

"I'm just here to get the job done..." Shepard said, absently plucking at the front of her uniform. "Let someone else be on the poster."

"Yeah, I doubt the Reapers listen to our propaganda anyway," he answered with a smirk, then frowned. "It'll really hit the fan when we get to Ilos. If things don't go well, I want you to know... I've enjoyed serving under you."

She regarded him speculatively for a long few seconds. "That's it? After all we've been through together? What are you afraid of?"

The direct question cut a ragged swath across the storm of conflicted impulses running through his mind. Kaidan desperately wished he could recapture the clarity that had come out of nowhere during that heady minute by the lockers.

_What _are _you afraid of?_

"I... I don't know," Kaidan said with a nervous shrug. "Fraternization _would_ be pretty far down the list of charges at our court martial..."

_Stop rationalizing everything and live a little!_

He groped to find words. Nothing seemed remotely adequate. He swallowed hard, then looked up to find her eyes. "You know what, you're right. About everything. I think about losing you and I can't stand it. The galaxy will just keep going. Everything, even the Reapers, will come around again. But you and I... _we_... are important right now. This is what will never happen again.

"Shepard, you make me feel... human."

She was silent for a moment as a brief expression of conflict flickered across her face. Then she took a step towards him.

"Stay with me tonight," she said quietly.

Kaidan's heart nearly stopped in his chest.

"That an order, Commander?" he said with a wary smile, trying to cover the shock that came with the blunt suggestion. Trust Shepard to cut right to the heart of things.

She cocked her head slightly to one side, searching his face again. Though she still wore her own half-smile, there was an uncertain tension around her eyes.

"No, Kaidan," she said at length. "They make me decide everything else, whether I want to or not. This... I'm not deciding for you." Her voice trailed off as she broke eye contact and turned slightly away, absently running her fingers over the edge of the desk.

A blunt jab of understanding hit Kaidan square in the chest. _That's what it is, isn't it? Everything's easier when someone else decides. And she's just as self-conscious, just as scared and unsure as me about everything, and of this... She's got the guts to be straight up, and I'm just dancing around, deflecting, making her think I don't-_

_That I don't really want her more than anything I've ever wanted in my life..._

After all the countless hours spent dreaming of her, agonizing over every word and gesture, the realization was so absurd that a bark of laughter got jammed up in the knot in his throat. But he was already moving, because to see that shining confidence falter because of his bad habits tore something inside of him. Because there was really only one solution to this problem, and there was only one thought left in his head.

_I will make her believe it._

Contact. Kaidan never realized how badly he missed so simple, so primal a thing as the warmth of touch until she slid so easily into his arms. Too long in the cold, distant formality of military life, he soaked up the sensations greedily as the first tentative kiss quickly turned deep and insistent.

Whatever hesitation she might have had vanished, and she was not the kind of person who did things by half measures. There was a furious, wanton thrill to feeling all his desire reflected back from her, and the last weak voices of doubt drowned under a flood of surging lust, the forbidden aspect of their actions transforming into an unexpected edge of intensity. So deliciously alive, he reveled in the play of muscles moving beneath smooth skin, the light and thoroughly intoxicating smell of her, unique in all the galaxy.

He discovered the scar across her forearm continued, a light slash against dark skin that rose slightly as it traveled across her belly. Even knowing the memory of pain it must engender, Kaidan found it alluring. Maybe because he knew there probably weren't that many people who'd seen it, but mostly because it only reinforced that this was no ordinary woman he was with but a warrior, as strong and fierce as she was beautiful.

Better than any book he'd read.

Somewhere in the middle of it, a strange sensation teased his mind. He opened his eyes enough to see it, the slight, unfocused distortion surrounding her like a halo. An uncontrolled reaction, not light in and of itself but a play of dark energy refraction that washed across her skin.

He could do the same thing, of course, but was resisting out of habit. But here... here it didn't matter, it wasn't going to bother anyone. In fact...

Shepard smiled in the dim light as Kaidan let his corona bleed into hers. It was another level of feeling, an almost ticklish, full-body awareness blending into the sea of sensations he already swam in, but also unique, like nothing he'd ever felt before.

It was over too fast.

Lying in the pleasant tangle of limbs, Shepard's head resting in the crook of his shoulder, Kaidan fought sleep, resisting the passage of every second that brought the moment closer to the inevitable end. Somewhere, wallowing in warmth and comfort, a thought welled up from the depths of his mind. Something he'd thought before in idle moments, but now in the darkness, with the memory of her flickering corona still fresh in his mind, a thought that finally sunk deeply into his heart.

_She'd never be afraid of... of me. _

Of all the undercurrents of wariness he'd encountered as a biotic, he'd never felt that from her, not once.

Unconsciously, he tightened his hold on Shepard. She shifted, making a quiet, wordless noise of contentment before lapsing back into sleep. Listening to her slow, even breathing, Kaidan wondered if he'd lived with the ghost of Vyrnnus for so long he hadn't even felt its subtle grip until it was so suddenly and completely gone.

At length, exhaustion and endorphins joined forces to push him over the last ledge into sleep.

He was jarred awake as Joker's voice snapped over the comm, announcing they were five minutes out from the Mu relay. Realizing he was alone in the bed, Kaidan pushed himself up onto his elbows, trying to shake off the grogginess.

"Hm, five minutes..." Shepard said from where she stood near her desk, straightening the top of her fatigues. "I think I still have some stress to work out..." A mischievous smile quirked her mouth as she trailed her gaze deliberately down his naked torso.

"I... ah, I don't think I've ever met a woman quite like you," he answered with a grin.

He watched as she pulled her hair back into its usual ponytail, the woman slowly submerging beneath the armor of Commander Shepard, Spectre. He could feel the moment of intimacy slip through his fingers even as he tried to hold onto it.

"Shepard..." he said quietly. "Come back."

She looked at him sidelong, then stepped toward him, sitting down next to him on the edge of the bed. She raised her hands to lay them on either side of his jaw, fingers tickling his hairline as she leaned in close. For a long moment she just stared into his eyes, before kissing him lightly. She lingered there, forehead to forehead. Then without a word, she pulled away and stood up, inhaling deeply before striding confidently out the door.

Kaidan closed his eyes, breathing the last of her lingering scent and wishing for all the world he could stop time.

The awkward reality he sat naked in his commander's bed began to intrude back into his awareness. Suddenly wildly self-conscious, he glanced around the room. Noticing Shepard had left her terminal display on, cycling slowly between the mess hall cameras, gave him a small measure of comfort as he went in search of haphazardly discarded clothes. At least now he'd be able to determine when it was safe to leave her quarters without being seen.

_Please, please come back._


	24. Carrier

Kaidan's right arm was dying by inches.

Lying awkwardly on his back in the debris of the Council chambers, he pushed desperately against the large section of wall sitting on his shoulder and bicep, unable to pry any leverage out of the smooth floor. He repeatedly flexed his right hand, as if he could will the spreading numbness back. He kicked and shoved at the sloping debris covering him, but it refused to move.

His head swimming painfully, Kaidan finally gave up on moving the and forced himself to open his eyes.

The HUD display was inescapable, interposing itself anywhere Kaidan tried to look. It was hundreds of hours of focus-tested design augmented by his own tweaking, his own personal battlefield companion. Everything where he liked- thousands of credits worth of technology feeding him all the relevant numbers in pale amber. Now it was a festival of warning indicators that spelled out the painful litany of battle. Structural breach. Kinetic impact exceeding compensation limits. Excess heat. Blood pressure warning.

But one was far worse than all the rest. The empty gap was tiny, crowded by other names in the lower-left side of the HUD. But in his head it was a chasm, a terrible yawning abyss threatening to swallow him with every breath.

Shepard's hardsuit wasn't even on the network anymore.

The ache of his trapped limb was nothing compared to the crawling terror wrapped around his chest. His mind writhed away from the jagged edges of logic, the experience that told him people died before their hardened armor systems.

Numbly, he raised his left hand and popped up his omni-tool display. Excruciatingly slow, he one-handedly tapped in a command sequence, forced several times by his blurring vision to correct mistakes. He entered the long decryption key he knew by heart, memorized since the day the commander had given it to him. The key was a backdoor to her hardsuit's operating system, enabling a knowledgeable user to directly control the armor's low-level functions. Manual control of things like the integrated medical exoskeleton could be invaluable in an emergency, but it could also be used to override the normal safety protocols that kept a person's seals from opening in a deadly environment.

Kaidan remembered clearly the feeling that came over him when Shepard had given him that key, the trust and responsibility it engendered. He had always taken a great deal of pride in knowing the nuts and bolts behind what most soldiers took for granted. Machines, crypto, bodies... they were all just systems. Complex, but knowable if one took the time to learn the rules that governed them.

_Rules._

He gritted his teeth as he re-read the command sequence three times before entering it, letting his tool reach out with invisible fingers. If anything in her hardsuit was listening, it should hear this.

He searched himself desperately for calm as the tool did its work. The sharp-edged memories of the past few hours crowded his head.

Ilos. The last hope of the protheans... but not for themselves. A vast tomb, a final gift to the unknown species of the future. The ancient prothean VI had filled in the final pieces, including the true nature of the Citadel and Sovereign's intentions for it.

The journey had been a jumble of unimaginable sights. The prothean's overgrown city, past the graves of thousands, through an ancient aqueduct to the "miniature" mass relay the ancient aliens had built for themselves. It seemed strangely fitting it should all lead back to the Citadel, that Shepard's unlikely team would literally fight their way up the Tower one step at a time, past hordes of geth and krogan warriors.

And at the top, where only hours ago the Council held court, was Saren, waiting for them. The rogue Spectre seemed to almost relish the opportunity to taunt Shepard with the Reapers' impending victory... but in so doing left himself open to the commander's most potent weapon. Into that space, Shepard drove the reality of Saren's indoctrination, pulling the doubt, the break in Sovereign's control just wide enough to let some light into the turian's shadowed heart.

Against all odds, once again Shepard's particular brand of magic worked- in one stunning instant Saren raised his pistol to his chin and pulled the trigger.

It should have been enough, finally the end. The mass relays re-opened so the _Normandy_ and the rest of the Alliance fleet could come to the aid of the embattled Citadel forces and the flagging _Destiny Ascension_. But the monstrous synthetic being clinging to the outside of the Tower launched one final gambit to wipe out Shepard's team and take control of the Citadel, incarnating itself in Saren's heavily implanted body.

Flesh burned black by Sovereign's animating energies, the skeletal turian had fought with vicious strength. Everything hung in the balance as Shepard rallied the already exhausted team to battle the Reaper's crimson-glowing avatar.

Kaidan's HUD flashed a message, an amber alert pushing through the memory of the red-eyed vision of doom.

ARMAX-PXM-3825-0H4F NOT FOUND

_No_

NO CARRIER

_No no nonononono_

Fighting for breath against the fist clenched around his heart, Kaidan squeezed his eyes shut against the burning intrusion of the unfeeling HUD. But there was no respite there either, no escape. Ghosted in memory, he could still hear Garrus' shout of alarm. In his mind's eye he saw it; the great tower window that once framed the councilors now framed a shapeless mass, rotating with sluggish immensity as it approached. Silhouetted against the purple swirl of nebula, Shepard turned and barked a last command at them, despite the patent futility of it. Too quick... too quick came the shockingly loud smash, the tortured squeal of metal, and as the floor heaved violently under his feet the ruddy light glittered off of the shattering glass, bathing her in a galaxy of falling stars.

_No... it doesn't... end like this... it didn't even..._

He opened his eyes but didn't see the looming debris, instead the blue distortion crawling along the edges of his vision outlined a naked, familiar form. In the darkness, Shepard smiled up at him, wreathed in subtle fire.

_... did... did that really happen?_

A lifetime ago. A thousand years, a thousand gunshots shattering ancient stone, a thousand dead cryo-pods, the baleful glare of a thousand relentless geth. A thousand light-years from here. Distance... A foot might as well have been a mile, for all the difference it made. Until abruptly there was no distance at all.

_My beautiful, fierce Valkyrie..._

Dimly he became aware he was curled over, beating his fist into the trapping debris with all of his miserable strength, sending jagged sparks of pain through his body with every blow. He hardly heard the wordless sounds of anguish escaping his throat with every breath.

_No_

_Not enough_

_It could never_

_be_

_enough_

* * *

Light came back slowly as the piece of wall suddenly lifted. A murmur of voices resolved slowly themselves as he was dragged free of his prison, and Kaidan numbly recognized Alliance uniforms moving around him. Anderson's penetrating eyes searched him as the captain asked where Shepard was in a low, tense voice. All Kaidan could do was look out toward the shattered audience chamber and shake his head. Unable to force the words out, as if the admission would close the final door and make it all terribly real.

Sitting on a low concrete retaining wall, Kaidan torpidly massaged the blood flow back into his arm, flexing his fingers and absorbing the fiery burn of feeling returning to the badly bruised flesh. He was dimly grateful for the medic on Anderson's small rescue team, glad that someone else could look after Liara, who'd been badly hurt by the embodied Reaper. The pull of responsibility nagged at the edges of his mind, but he could excuse himself on the grounds that his dexterity wasn't back up to speed yet. In any case, he didn't think he was in any state to do much of anything.

Kaidan had never demanded so much of his biotics for so long, and now he felt like a thick layer of wool was wrapped around his brain. A dull pain throbbed somewhere behind his eyes, and he idly imagined every mutant node in his nervous system aching with each electrical impulse.

Beside him Garrus slumped in such a human-seeming posture of dejection that it jarred Kaidan out of his own misery to look over at the turian.

Anderson paced in obvious frustration, speaking quickly into his comlink. Some distance away, Tali helped a marine manhandle a makeshift stretcher into the small hopper transport the captain had used to get up to the top of the Tower, past the ruined elevators. Kaidan had managed to vaguely acknowledge that Liara would be evacuated to one of the asari cruisers docked close by and serving as an emergency hospital.

Wrex warned off the remaining marine with a dangerous glare, the krogan seemingly oblivious to the orange blood streaking his armor as he stalked across the room toward Kaidan and Garrus.

Kaidan didn't look up as Wrex approached. All the times he'd asked himself why it couldn't have been himself instead of Shepard who had to die, he also wondered why it couldn't have been the nihilistic mercenary. The thought was a sickening but persistent one, an ugly impulse formed in the writhing mass of emotion that desperately wanted someone to blame, something to lash out against.

"C'mon," the krogan's gravelly voice snapped, an instant before Kaidan was grabbed under the left shoulder and hauled bodily to his feet.

"Fuck off!" Kaidan snarled, wrenching himself free from the krogan's grip. The vulgarity tasted strange, considering how rarely he resorted to it. But he was the kind of person who saved swearing for when he really meant it.

"We're gonna go look," Wrex growled. "Because dead or alive, you don't leave the warlord under a bunch of crap. And you don't leave your-"

The krogan broke off suddenly, then stabbed an armored finger into Kaidan's chest. "I don't have to tell you why, Alenko, you already know why," the mercenary rumbled, eyes narrow. Wrex turned and stumped away into the smoking debris.

Kaidan stared after him, standing rigidly and breathing between his teeth. _I don't... I don't want to see it. I don't want to see her crushed somewhere... I..._

"I'll help. Let's... let's go." Garrus' familiar burr wavered as the turian limped past Kaidan, picking his way through the mess on the floor toward the short flight of stairs to the top tier of the audience chamber.

The marine from Anderson's team cautiously approached from off to one side, a questioning look on his young face. Kaidan waved him away and wearily made himself follow after Garrus.

_Stupid... Stupid naive idiot. You knew this could happen and you walked into it anyway._

At the top of the stairs, Kaidan stopped and forced himself to look around. The smoke had thinned out considerably, venting up through the shattered skylights, but the tang of burnt wood and cloth still hung in the air, an unnatural, chemical smell. All around, the once-graceful sweep of the chamber was broken by twisted and cracked composite concrete and metal. All over, reinforcing bars stuck out like fractured bones poking out of ragged flesh.

Kaidan swallowed hard and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, angling down the right side of the chamber and scanning the fallen debris. Absently, he noted the dissolving remains of Keepers lying among the burnt trunks of ornamental trees.

He knew exactly why he didn't want to look for Shepard- because deep down in his heart was a little ember of stubborn hope, and irrational as it was, he clung to it. In one half of Schrödinger's quantum cat box, Shepard was still alive against all odds.

_Stupid_ _._

He wasn't sure how much time had passed when Garrus' call bounced off the shattered walls. Kaidan stood straight, his stomach constricting. He steeled himself and began walking toward it, gingerly negotiating the precarious slope down into what had been the ornamental garden below the main audience stage. The scene of Sovereign's last battle, incarnated in Saren's heavily implanted body, was a charred ruin, the grass burnt and the soil churned up by the broken, badly heaved foundations.

The turian was on his knees, head low to the ground, peering through a small gap under a smooth, sloping expanse of rounded blue-black metal. It was obvious this piece, like a few others scattered about the vast room, had never been part of the Citadel. The broken piece of Reaper seemed to drink in the light, giving off eerily abnormal reflections that didn't seem to make intuitive sense. Looking at it too hard only worsened Kaidan's numbing headache.

Garrus sat back on his heels and gestured wordlessly as Kaidan approached. A crash resounded behind them, and a grumbling curse announced Wrex as the krogan belligerently shoved offending debris aside and strode up beside them.

"You sure?" Wrex asked, eyeing Garrus and then the slab of metal.

"Yes I'm sure!" Garrus snapped. "There might be space, but... I don't know, I couldn't see anything clearly, just..." he trailed off, mandibles flexing.

Kaidan looked over the chunk of Reaper, trying to gauge what it would take to move. It looked like it could weigh as much as the Mako. _Space... _That tiny hope flickered, stubborn against all rational efforts to extinguish it. _Need a digger or a crane..._

"All right, we'll lift it," Wrex stated bluntly. He jabbed a finger toward Garrus. "Be ready to move, Vakarian."

Kaidan looked incredulously at the mercenary, only vaguely hearing Garrus' acknowledgment. Wrex stamped his huge, three-toed feet in the loose dirt to plant them solidly. The krogan's biotic corona flared to life as he glanced expectantly back at Kaidan.

_Don't leave the warlord buried. Dead or..._

Breathing deeply, Kaidan slid robotically into his set stance, letting his eyes unfocus from the disturbing section of synthetic god. Gravity in the Council chamber was already abnormally light, but still rock steady and felt just as vast as a planetary well.

He felt gravity begin to shift ahead of him. Instead of the sharp heave useful during a fight, Wrex was building slowly. Kaidan reached out and added his own strength to the field, trying to make his exhausted nerves balance the output so as to complement but not compete with the krogan's. Loose debris and ornamental stones began to float into the air as the gravitational field neutralized, then inverted.

The huge slab of metal creaked.

_More._ The absolute need that this thing be moved pummeled Kaidan relentlessly. Desperate, with nothing else left to give, he did something he hadn't done in fifteen years. He lashed out with all the rage, anguish and reckless hope boiling in his head, pulling strength from every fiber of his being. Beside him, Wrex bellowed a guttural warcry as the lift intensified, the two fields folding into each other in a rippling storm of dark energy.

Ponderously, the piece of Sovereign eased slowly upwards.

"Hold it!" Garrus yelled somewhere close by.

Kaidan's head roared as he fought to maintain the field. His vision began to tunnel as darkness pushed in from all sides. It was an interminable time before the turian's voice rang out again.

"Clear!"

Kaidan let go all at once, so tired he felt as if his soul had been forcefully wrenched from his body. The dull crash resounded in the enclosed space as the slab of black metal returned to earth, sending a shock up his legs as his world tilted precariously and darkness closed in to claim him.

A sudden, sharp noise pulled him back from the welcoming arms of unconsciousness. He was on his hands and knees, breathing in harsh, ragged gasps of total exhaustion. He tasted blood, opening his eyes to see it spattering the ground as it ran from his nose. A white-hot spike of pain lanced through his head.

The noise came again, a crack of imperative Kaidan recognized as his name, penetrating the thickness wrapped around his mind and jolting him back in the vague direction of awareness. He looked around in the direction of the sound, forcing his blurring vision to focus.

His heart climbed into his throat. Only feet away, Garrus knelt in the dirt cradling a green-armored form sprawled sideways across his knees. A huge, ugly tear had laid open Shepard's back, crossing down from her left shoulder and shearing through the armor's power plant. The wrecked composite ceramic armor plates stood out at odd angles around bloody, torn muscle tissue. A similar tear ran parallel across the back of her left thigh. Streaks of red stained the armor dark.

Garrus was babbling something as Kaidan crawled to his side. One word struck like lightning, instantly burning a clear path straight into his head.

_bleeding_

Everything went away. The pounding pain and towering exhaustion evaporated even as the ember of hope flared into a roaring fire, pushing back the darkness. In his mind he grabbed at the well of instinctual detachment that came with dealing with injuries and fought to barricade himself against the storm of panic suddenly surging through him.

He quickly arranged her on her right side well away from the vicious wounds, pushing a fragment of concrete under her helmet to support it. The bloody tear along the back of her shoulder was a mess, but he localized the worst of the bleeding. He snatched Garrus' desperately groping hands and pressed them into service, distantly hearing himself telling the turian where to apply pressure before doing the same to the wound along her leg.

Shepard's armor was battered and scraped from head to toe, not only from the fall but also the long battle that had started so far away. The brow-plate of her helmet was deeply scored, and the high-impact visor was fractured into a spiderweb of cracks. Kaidan reached for the medkit he usually carried before remembering it wasn't there anymore, lost somewhere in the mayhem of the shattering Tower. He quickly glanced around, spotting Anderson negotiating the sloping piece of gangway down from the upper level.

"Captain!" Kaidan called out. "I need medi-gel... or a kit, anything! Stat!"

Anderson's head snapped up, eyes wide, then he turned and yelled up to the marine standing above him. Kaidan had already turned back to Shepard, carefully checking the blood flow from the wound he was holding closed.

"It... went right through the power plant," Garrus observed in a quavering voice, gingerly leaning over to examine Shepard's torn armor. "I've never seen anything like that before... it must have fried the whole OS."

Kaidan nodded, absently swiping at the blood trickling from his nose with the back of a forearm. He could only imagine what twist of fate had led to the jagged edge of the debris hitting Shepard just right so that the thick, rigid plates protecting the power plant had deflected the worst of what otherwise would have punched straight through her spine. And then whatever had been sitting on her had kept the bleeding in check until the slab of metal had been lifted free.

Anderson appeared beside Kaidan, dropped to one knee and pushed a medkit toward him.

"Chief Keasani went with Doctor T'Soni," the captain said quickly. "But she left a few kits. You'll have to handle this." Kaidan dimly recalled the name as that of the medic that had come with Anderson's small rescue party.

"Not a problem, sir," Kaidan answered automatically. _As if I'd let anyone else do it._

He worked quickly, marshaling the waning surge of adrenaline to try and keep his head clear as he sealed the torn flesh with medi-gel. Satisfied the visible bleeding was halted, he picked up Shepard's left hand and, selecting a small tool from the med-kit, manually forced open the wrist seal of her armor to finally pull the glove off. He then slipped a small monitor band from the kit around her wrist, and a few quick commands from his omni-tool forwarded the output to his HUD.

His head was swimming by the time the numbers popped up in his visor display and resolved themselves. He realized he'd been holding his breath, and let it out slowly as the heart rate monitor came back low but steady. A towering wave of relief flooded all corners of his being.

Anderson's deep voice pushed through the fog. "Lieutenant?"

"Uh... looks... stable right now, sir," Kaidan managed, fighting to keep his voice even. "But I have zero output from the medical exoskeleton... I'm still worried about internal injuries. The sooner we can get her to a med-bay, the better. If she crashes here..." He trailed off, his heart constricting at the thought.

The captain nodded, relief evident on his lined face. "Understood," he answered. "It's mayhem out there right now. Everyone wants a docking berth or a charge dump station, but the traffic tower is down, so the comm channels are absolutely jammed. But I'll make something happen."

Kaidan nodded gratefully as Anderson stood up, his omni-tool flaring to life as the captain walked away.

Suddenly Shepard shifted, making Kaidan's heart lurch. Keeping an eye on the heart monitor readouts, he reached out to keep her from rolling onto her torn back, nonetheless grateful to see her limbs move. Her eyelids fluttered and finally opened. Her brows furrowed, then with visible effort she squinted up to focus on Kaidan, then Garrus.

"Hi," Kaidan said lamely, unable to force anything else out past the knot in his throat.

Shepard peered at them past the shattered visor. "... you guys're a sight for sore eyes," she said finally, her voice thick. "Where-" She stopped, wincing as she shifted slightly.

"Shepard? You probably shouldn't move too much," Garrus interjected.

Her face screwed up into an expression of consternation. "... feel like the floor of an all-krogan slam-dance party," she grumbled. "Is... is everyone all right? Liara…?"

"Captain Anderson is here," Kaidan said, the status report coming without having to think about it, a product of habit and training. "His transport took Liara to an asari cruiser for medical attention. Everyone else is in one piece."

"Anderson... okay." She exhaled and seemed to relax a bit.

Kaidan suspected she still would have tried to be Commanding Officer even lying in a half-dead heap on the ground.

"We uh... we did... win, right?" Shepard asked at length.

"Yeah," Kaidan answered, forcing a weary grin as Garrus nodded, mandibles flaring. The over-simplification felt a little silly but good nonetheless.

"Although we happened to be ground zero for Sovereign's death throes," the turian added. "You dropped completely off the network, Commander. We thought... the worst for a while."

Shepard grunted, a wry smile twisting her mouth. "Guess Sovereign had to take one last swing on the way down, huh?"

A short bark of laughter came from behind Kaidan. A shadow loomed over his shoulder as Wrex peered down at the recumbent commander. "Bah, the Reaper showed up in person to kill you and couldn't do it," the krogan rumbled. "Throwing rocks wasn't gonna do it either."

Wrex shifted his weight and raised something in his right hand. Kaidan startled when he finally realized it was a jawless turian skull, the flesh seared and blackened by Sovereign's energies. There was little left to recognize the former Spectre, the twisted cabling and implants now forever dark.

A moment of silence stretched out as they all regarded the skull, absorbing its stark finality.

"Didn't I promise you Saren's head?" Shepard said mildly. "You're welcome to it."

"That's right, you did." Wrex flipped the grisly trophy over in his hands and regarded it at arm's length. "I'm glad you remembered. I think I'll have it ground up and served on a steak. Hm, think I could eat two whole Varren right about now." He tuned a crimson eye back to the three of them.

"C'mon, Vakarian." The krogan bent down, wrapped thick fingers around Garrus' heavy collar and dragged the turian to his feet. "Anderson needs to fit a shuttle in here and damned if I'm going to move everything on my own."

"If you guys spot anything we could use as a stretcher, that would help," Kaidan suggested, pointedly staying put.

Garrus nodded in acknowledgment before reluctantly turning to follow Wrex.

The headache and all-consuming exhaustion started to impose themselves again, a towering weight that made Kaidan's head spin as he let himself slump. He wanted nothing more than to slide into darkness, away from the worrisome numbers in his visor, the fear still gnawing at him.

But he was needed, so he clung stubbornly to consciousness. He looked down and found Shepard's brown eyes staring up at him.

Her brow creased slightly at the sight of his stricken expression. "Said I'd... come back, didn't I?" she said wearily.

Kaidan swallowed. "You... didn't, actually," he mumbled, his voice breaking. He swiped self-consciously at his eyes.

"Don't..." Her voice trailed off as her gaze unfocused and her eyelids fluttered.

"Hey!" Kaidan lurched forward, sliding a hand under her helmet as her head sagged. "Shepard... Damn it, stay awake!" The number representing her blood pressure in his HUD wavered sickeningly.

Shepard's face twitched as she moved her hand slightly up to curl her fingers around Kaidan's palm. "Don'worry..." she murmured, the words slurring together as a slight smile wandered across her face. "...ll'be okay."

"Surviving's... what m'good at."


	25. Eternity

Kaidan lost track of time for a while.

He'd woken up once, his head pounding and his vision clouded with auras as he recognized the dimmed med-bay of the _Normandy_. He remembered disjointed images of Doctor Chakwas as she'd come to administer painkillers and a sedative. He'd looked over and caught a glimpse of Shepard lying on her side on the bed to his left, feeling relief through the roar of pain as he slipped off the edge back into unconsciousness again.

When he finally woke up a second time, Shepard was gone. Chakwas had rolled her eyes at his inquiry about the commander's whereabouts, grumbling about the Council demanding to see the commander as soon as she was able. Which, unsurprisingly, Shepard decided was right away, much to the doctor's chagrin. Chakwas made it quite clear to Kaidan no one else was escaping her care until she deemed them acceptably healthy.

He managed to get out after a day and a half, groggy and sore but more or less whole, his electrolyte and blood sugar levels finally somewhere close to normal after the beating he'd given his biotics.

Not that there was anywhere to go. They were in lockdown again, docked at a change dump station with no gantry access and all hands confined aboard with no external communications allowed without express permission from XO Pressley. The crew was allowed to compose messages to be sent to their families as a reassurance of their safety, but even these were screened for content. As an officer, Kaidan got to share the distasteful task of scanning a batch of messages for classified information. Which, in a case like this, was basically everything short of 'yes, I'm still alive'.

The ship seemed strangely empty despite everything. The alien team members had not returned before the lockdown was ordered. Garrus stayed ground-side to help C-Sec restore order, and Wrex disappeared into the damaged Citadel to follow whatever mercenary urge the krogan might have felt now that Saren was dead. Kaidan found himself badly missing Ashley's easy laugh, Garrus and Tali's stimulating conversations and even Liara's shy brilliance.

After three days of confinement, the mood on the _Normandy_ began to get ugly. Pressley could only reassure the crew that Commander Shepard was alive and well, and the Citadel was being cleared of holdout geth forces. Predictably, it did little to quell rumors and speculation.

Kaidan mostly kept to himself, avoiding Joker and stepping into conversations and disputes only to try to keep morale up. But left in relative isolation over the interminable hours, Kaidan's usually considerable patience wore thin.

He worried about Shepard. He worried about why he hadn't heard anything from her. He knew she was probably under orders too, but still resented the lack of communication. He worried about what would become of them, if there even was a 'them'. He tried not to think about their stolen night, but consistently failed.

Finally, it came. No one on the ship missed the telltale sound of the docking clamps disengaging and the gentle pulse of the maneuvering thrusters. The message went out, all crew were called to gather on the main deck. Elation and trepidation boiled in equal measure in the buzz of conversation that ricocheted around the confines of the tiny frigate.

Only minutes later, from his personal commlink, came the quiet tone alerting him he'd received a message. His heart bounced off the inside of his ribcage when he saw it was a secure transmission from Shepard. A bunch of numbers that when he finally managed to think straight resolved themselves into an address within the Citadel Presidium, and the clearance to get there.

And so he was fairly bursting with impatience by the time he stood off to the side of the _Normandy's_ raised CIC platform, hands clasped behind his back at parade rest. He was sincerely trying to make time move faster by sheer will alone when Joker unexpectedly took up position beside him, standing more or less straight as he leaned on his crutches.

The two men stayed silent for a moment, the hum of the ship and hushed conversation filling the air with white noise.

"You think it would reflect poorly on my service record if I dropped a stasis field on Pressley and bolted for the airlock?" Kaidan ventured without looking over, pitching his voice quiet enough not to travel across the room.

"I dunno," Joker drawled. "Would that go before or after fraternization on the court martial charges?"

Kaidan examined the far wall as he tried to gauge the other man. "Are we going to have a problem?" he asked evenly.

Joker let the question hang for a few seconds.

"Nah, just yanking you," the pilot said finally, his trademark smirk evident in his voice. "I think I've been shorted enough friends for one lifetime."

Kaidan let out a long breath. It had taken a frighteningly long time to go through the Alliance casualty lists, but he'd been unwilling to simply skim the names. It was numbing, bringing a dull shock every time he recognized one. It felt necessary to read all of them, to try to absorb the scale of the conflict and ultimately the sacrifice it had taken to bring down Sovereign.

And it was, at least for a time, distracting.

Joker snickered softly beside him. "Anyway, the look on your face when I dropped the cockblock on you in front of the lockers was absolutely priceless. Keeps me warm at night."

Kaidan fought to keep his expression blank.

The pilot casually examined his fingernails. "If you're going to break my legs, just give me some warning so I can ask the doc to stock up on pins."

"Too easy," Kaidan answered balefully. "I'll just wait until you're asleep, then override your pod's emergency lock and play a loop of your favorite insipid kid's show over the comm channel on full volume for a while."

Joker sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Now that's just... _nasty_."

Kaidan was about to remind the pilot of the danger inherent in harassing someone who not only knows where you sleep but knows where to find the lockout codes to your bed when XO Pressley marched out of the comm room and ascended the ramp to the CIC. Ambient conversation ceased instantly as the assembled crew snapped hasty salutes.

To his credit, Pressley understood that being long-winded at that juncture would probably be detrimental to his health, and so made his points crisply and quickly. Kaidan already knew what the XO was going to say, so he ran over travel plans again in his head as he tried not to fidget. Mostly the speech was to do with discretion and secrecy; the crew was forbidden to talk about recent events until further notice.

"Well, that comes as a surprise to exactly no one," Joker commented when Pressley finished and most of the crew flew away like dry leaves in a stiff wind. "Think there's a decent bar still standing down there?"

"On a station overrun with soldiers?" Kaidan answered absently, checking his tool readout for the tenth time. "If there isn't, there's an awful lot of credits going unearned."

The pilot peered at him with a raised eyebrow, then sighed. "Yeah, you better get going before you have a massive coronary right here. When you come up for air you can buy a beer or six and tell me what the hell happened down there."

"Sure." Kaidan nodded with a grin.

"See ya," Joker said, hitching up his crutches and turning toward the door to the lower level.

It took a great deal of effort not to run as Kaidan made his way out the airlock and down the gangway to the elevator. C-Sec was a hive of activity as agents of all species hustled in and out. The familiar main hall was scored with blast marks and plasma burns where the geth had mounted an assault on the Presidium's security station, and a number of small makeshift memorials leaned against the damaged wall near the entrance.

The reminders were everywhere as he traveled. The bodies had been removed and the geths' transformative spikes taken away, but otherwise the Presidium still bore all the scars of Saren's vicious surprise attack. C-Sec agents roamed the streets in small teams, checking IDs and directing traffic away from sensitive locations. They were supported by units of soldiers from all Citadel species to enforce order until the damaged infrastructure was restored.

Kaidan tolerated the ID checks with badly contained impatience, and once it became apparent who he was, was forced to fend off everything from unconcealed awe to offers of an armed escort to his destination.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he finally made it to the apartment complex, and a secure door guarded by clearance-only retinal scans closed behind him. He'd never been more grateful for intrusive security measures in his life.

Compared to the noise and activity of the Presidium's main level, the apartment block was eerily quiet, apparently untouched by the geth attack. Set into the sloping side of the Presidium ring, a smooth-running elevator offered a birds-eye view that, a few days ago, would have been breathtaking. Kaidan hardly noticed it or the tiled hallway leading into the complex as he scanned the subdued holo-signs for the number he was looking for.

When he finally found it he stopped, trying to collect himself, his nerves alive with both trepidation and anticipation. He chewed his lip for a moment, then reached out and touched the door panel. The automated lock chimed as it recognized his comm-signal, then cycled the door open with a soft hiss. Kaidan walked in and looked around.

The room beyond the door was spacious without being grand, with high ceilings and delicately curving walls typical of asari architectural tastes. A small but practical-looking kitchen faced into a carpeted living space, where a large couch faced a sleek holo-projector unit. On one side of the room was an open doorway.

Kaidan stopped short of calling out and instead padded across the carpet to the door. The room beyond was sparse, dominated by a large, low bed neatly made up with light blue covers. The left-hand wall was a wide bay window letting out onto a balcony overlooking the Presidium.

The light from the wide expanse of partially opaqued glass fell across Shepard, who lay on the bed curled on her side in a position not unlike that in which Kaidan had seen her last. The slight bulge over her shoulder under the light shirt betrayed the wound healing beneath. Her face was peaceful, hair loose. A datapad sat by her hand where it must have slipped free from her grip when she'd fallen asleep.

He gripped the door frame tightly as everything he'd carefully crammed in a box for the past few days surged against the restraints. Twin impulses warred in his head, the need to run to her fighting the urge to let her sleep.

Kaidan retreated from the door, taking a few stumbling steps before sinking onto one end of the couch. He slumped and dropped his face into his hands with a shudder as the anguish of those awful few minutes in the Citadel Tower washed over him.

_God, what am I doing?_ _Pretending I have a normal life and I can just-_

Suddenly a weight depressed the couch beside him. He glanced up as Shepard eased his arms aside and slid up next to him.

"Kye..." he said in a shaking voice, consciously using her first name for the first time since meeting her.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" she said with a small smile as she hugged him.

_Harder than you think. _ In Kaidan's head it was another line crossed, a part of himself that still stubbornly held out finally giving in. He shifted, carefully pulling her with him as he lay back against the overstuffed couch arm and stretched his legs out. Shepard settled comfortably between him and the couch back, her wounded back out of harm's way, tucking her head in the crook of his shoulder like the night before Ilos. His aching ribs protested, but he ignored them.

"I'm sorry... it took so long," she said quietly. "The Council likes to listen to themselves pontificate and the Alliance brass are busy doing the headless chicken routine, everybody and their cousin wants to talk to me, wants a full report from beginning to end... everything's classified and my shoulder hurts and the meds make me so damn tired and for three days all I wanted was this."

Kaidan experienced a palpable sensation of release as the knot of tension and doubt that had slowly built up over the past few days started to unwind.

"You okay?" Shepard asked.

"Better now," he mumbled, holding her tightly.

In the blissful stillness, free of even the omnipresent hum of shipboard systems, Kaidan soaked in the warmth and smell of her, the feeling of her slow, steady breathing, letting it all gradually dull the ragged edges of recent days.

_Spend all my time worrying about what'll cost me my control, and hardly ever what the control costs me._

_But... I guess that's sort of who I am. She doesn't _ _seem to mind so much._

After a while, she seemed to have fallen asleep, but he didn't mind, perfectly content to bear her comfortable weight for hours if necessary. He was starting to drift himself when she stirred and spoke.

"Kaidan..."

"Hm?"

"Whatever this is we have... I think it's worth fighting for."

"I'm happy to hear you say that," he answered, opting for plain truth.

"But... I don't know what that's going to mean yet," she murmured at length. "It's not going to be easy... I have to keep being a Spectre."

"I know." He absently smoothed back a stray lock of her hair. "I wouldn't expect otherwise."

"What we did wasn't right by the books but... I just don't regret it," Shepard said.

"Me neither." Kaidan was somewhat surprised at how much he meant it.

"You know, deep down, that's... what I was fighting for..." she continued quietly. "That little selfish thing. And all the other things. All the frivolous, irrational connections that spread out from one person into the weave that ends up encompassing all of us."

She traced light fingers over his chest. "All the things... no machine will ever understand."

Kaidan nuzzled the top of her head. Something in him said it was a just a justification, but he wasn't as sure as he might have been months ago. Even knowing something like the Reapers existed at all made him less sure of the order of his long-held priorities. Pragmatism aside, he couldn't deny her words made him happy in the deepest parts of his heart.

"Did you get a chance to check on Liara?" he asked after a while.

"Yeah, I visited her a couple of times," Shepard replied. "She's doing well, though it was touch and go for a while. We're lucky Anderson showed up when he did."

"I'm glad, we couldn't get any news while we were on the _Normandy_."

Shepard made a face. "I still don't know how to feel about the fact I turned an archaeologist into a combat veteran..."

"She chose to fight with us," Kaidan pointed out.

"I know, I guess I just like to imagine the world doesn't need more soldiers. But it's weirder to think that fighting Saren might be the only important thing _we_ ever do, but for her it's just a few months out of a thousand years of experiences."

"You're going to give me a headache," he said mildly. "Where did Tali end up?"

"She made the mistake of offering to help C-Sec restore their internal network. She's developing quite a little entourage, we may have to sneak her off the station if she ever wants to go home."

Kaidan smirked. "Word gets around I guess. I had to fight through a bit of a crowd to get here myself."

"I haven't been out much," Shepard said tiredly. "Doctor Chakwas told me to stay in bed when at all possible, and anyway they're still trying to decide if they want to court martial me or not."

"Pardon?" He frowned incredulously as a flutter of worry ran through him.

She sighed in a long-suffering fashion. "Anderson thinks it's saber-rattling, mostly. Admiralty politics. The brass doesn't want to seem soft, doesn't want to be seen to condone a precipitous, illegal action by a ship commander no matter the circumstances.

"But on the other hand, there's some question as to validity of the order in the first place. Udina didn't have the military authority to issue such an order to me, so technically it came from the Council to me as a Spectre and had nothing to do with Alliance chain of command."

Kaidan chuckled softly. "Ah, jurisdiction."

"I'd hate to be the lawyer on this one, but yeah," Shepard answered. "Hackett is on our side at least, and he's got a lot of pull."

"I should damn well hope so," he said irritably. "If he suddenly forgot all those little messes we cleaned up for him..."

Shepard snickered. "We could always leave a certain defused nuclear probe on his front lawn, that might remind him.

"But the lockdown order itself isn't widely known outside of top-level command," she continued. "In the end, Anderson thinks it'll be suppressed. Too many people already know we were involved, and with all the ships we lost, it makes better political capital to hail heroes than throw people in jail. The Council seems to feel the same. Saren already stained the Spectres pretty badly, it doesn't make sense to hang another one."

"The fact that we saved their lives notwithstanding..." Kaidan said sarcastically.

Shepard shrugged. "They're still busy arguing about what to do next, knowing the truth about the Citadel and the Reapers. I'm sure you've noticed none of the news vids have talked about the Reapers or referred to Sovereign as anything other than a heretofore unseen geth dreadnought... Sovereign's sentience is still deeply classified right now."

Kaidan frowned up at the ceiling. "It doesn't seem right, not to make the truth known..."

"To me either," she agreed. "But there are arguments about what it would achieve, about social and economic panic and so on. There's even worry it would start up a rash of cults, people who would start trying to work _for_ the Reapers under the same logic as Saren's. Those who would think the Reapers _are_ gods and start fighting against their own people."

"Every death-obsessed lunatic's fantasy come to life."

"Yeah." She nodded. "I think... I still come down on the side of wanting everyone to know the truth, because we'll need unprecedented unity among species if we plan to survive a full-scale Reaper assault. We have to assume beings like the Reapers have contingency plans, but when they might put them into action is anyone's guess. It could be tomorrow, or five thousand years from now. They operate on a timescale that's outside even the asari's experience.

"Honestly, I'm just glad someone _else_ can decide this one. I've got more than enough..." She shifted, trailing off.

A shudder ran through her body. "I miss Ash," she said quietly.

Kaidan closed his eyes against the well of guilt. Saren's defeat had blunted the knife edge of the feeling, some comfort coming from the knowledge that the chief's death had not been for nothing. But he still suspected it would be some time before the mention of her name stopped stinging.

"Me too," he said finally, tightening his hug. "You... haven't really had time to deal with it, have you?"

She shook her head slightly against his chest. "Any of it," she said, her voice quavering. "I couldn't, I had to just keep going, keep putting one foot in front of the other until the job was done.

"Everything. Ash, Cerberus... The people I thought... I thought I knew... I mean, none of us were model citizens or anything, but..."

Shepard seemed to curl in on herself. "But I just can't escape the feeling if I'd made a few different decisions I'd have been in there too, doing those awful things. I've never been a saint... But the past few days, all these people treating me like I'm some kind of savior... They use the word hero, and all I can think about is Kahoku and Toombs and all those people of Nodacrux and it just makes me nauseous."

Kaidan frowned. "Come on, Kye-"

"I know," she whispered, drawing in a long shuddering breath. "What you said... was right. Cerberus doesn't decide who I am now... Intellectually I know. I just have to get it through my head." She rubbed her eyes.

Kaidan laid his hand lightly along her jawline. "Maybe you're exactly who you needed to be to win against something like the Reapers. And maybe the hard edges of you are just as important to that end as the humanity."

She was quiet for a long moment.

"Is it really that simple?" she said finally in an uncharacteristically small voice.

He shrugged. "Why complicate it? Can you really put Sovereign anywhere on the same moral yardstick we use for ourselves? If you think about it too much you'll just paint yourself into a corner and make yourself miserable."

Kaidan could almost feel the smirk on her face.

"Okay, yes, I'm throwing stones from my glass house," he conceded. "But... maybe that just means I know what I'm talking about," he said. "It's all so hard to absorb, because the numbers just... beggar the imagination. It's easy to feel good about saving one life, but trillions? And you... _you_ did that."

"_We_ did..." she said wearily.

"You're quick to say that, and don't think it isn't appreciated. But _you're_ the one that had to have the willpower to deal with the beacon message, to stand up to the Council, to risk everything and defy them and our own military when they turned on us... _You're_ the one who had to make all those choices, not us, and I don't know if any of us can really know what it was like."

Shepard was quiet again for a long time.

"Have I told you lately how nice it is to have someone around to talk sense?" she said finally. "It's got to be the biggest downside of rank... less and less people are willing to point out when you're being silly."

"Or, heaven forbid, human," Kaidan replied.

She sniffed dismissively. "I'm not human, I'm a Spectre. Grr, hiss and so on."

"When you walk through your first wall, let me know. Until then I have evidence to the contrary." He quite deliberately slipped a hand under her loose shirt and let it rove over smooth skin.

She pushed herself up on an elbow and looked him in the eyes. "It's not fair giving me ideas I'm too sore to follow through on," she said with a hint of reproach.

Kaidan grinned. "I can be patient."

"Maybe _you_ can..." Shepard leaned forward and kissed him lingeringly.

A hot rush ran through him, a feeling lush with promise for the next time they could be together.

She broke the embrace but stayed close. "But I guess until I learn to do it with my mind I'll have to be."

"Embrace eternity?" he said with a lopsided smile.

Shepard rolled her eyes. "I don't have eternity," she said mildly. "I suspect one day Death is going to get angry that I keep missing his appointments."

"Do you have to talk that way?" he said in a pained tone.

Shepard cocked her head to one side. "What? It's the truth. I sort of doubt many Spectres die of old age."

"Maybe..." Kaidan hugged her tightly again. "But... give my heart at least a few days off from harsh realities, okay?"

"Oh, I have more than a few days in mind," she answered with an arch smile. "I think I earned some shore leave, and I intend to practice _embracing the moment_." The slightly predatory lilt in her voice made more of his blood supply head south of the border.

Kaidan met her warm brown-eyed gaze, suddenly feeling like there was nothing else in the world.

_My life wasn't normal even before I was _ _born. Nothing is perfect, but for a little while, maybe I have something damn close._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Lossefalme, my beta throughout.


End file.
